Path to Vengeance
by Dark Acerbus
Summary: Kara Tyler is a shy but effective hacker, and she's just joined one of the nation's most infamous mercenary teams. But when one of the team's jobs brings the wrath of both a criminal syndicate and the government, what can the mercenaries do?
1. Journal Entry 01

Hi there.

I'd just like to say that these "Journal" chapters aren't completely essential to the story and can be skipped if the mood takes you. They're here to give you a glimpse into this character's head and occasionally provide some background info, but they probably won't have a huge impact on the story itself. Just a heads up. The story proper starts in the next chapetr, and I've put the disclaimer there as well if you're looking for it.

Anyways, hope you enjoy.

* * *

18-3-2018

Journal Entry 01: Joining the Mercs

My name is Kara Tyler. I am 18 years old, and I'm a mobian lemur. Many people turn and look at me in the street because of my species; we lemurs are not often found in cities, and are seen as reclusive creatures. I'm one of the few exceptions.

A week ago I was hired by one of the most efficient and well-paid mercenary groups in the nation. Unlike other mercenary groups I have heard of, my employers have no catchy name for themselves and are commonly referred to as simply "the mercs".

I've been hired for my computer expertise and hacking skills, something that the group lacked before I arrived. Since I joined, I have been an accessory to both theft and murder. I'm still not comfortable with assisting in murder; I may not have killed anyone personally, but my skills helped one of the mercenaries to gain access to the target. Theft, on the other hand, I can deal with. It's how I ended up here in the first place, after all.

I've been having some really bad dreams since I helped with murder, and they don't seem to be going away. Every night it's the same; I dream about walking into a dark room, the only light cast from the open doorway behind me. There's a person in the room. I never see their face, but it's still a person. I raise a knife in my right hand and plunge it down into them, again and again until I'm covered in blood and the room is stained red. Then I wake up. I'm not sure why I'm having dreams that graphic when all I did was open a door and let someone get access to the target, but maybe it's because I feel so guilty about what I've done. Although, that's not my only problem.

I'm finding it difficult to get to know my fellow mercenaries. My people skills aren't exactly the best in the world; I usually run out of things to say pretty quickly. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm fully aware that each of the people I'm trying to talk to are notorious criminals. Well, they would be notorious if the police had a clue who they were.

I've decided to try and create a brief profile for each of my fellow mercenaries. Maybe it'll help me get a better idea of how to talk to them. Whoever's reading this must think I'm pretty sad for doing this, but here it is:

Jin Lenea (pronounced Len-ay-ah) - A forty-something mobian wolf, Jin seems to be the leader of the team, or one of them at least. So far, he has shown himself to be very smart and has excellent foresight and planning skills. He's helped me feel better about what I've helped his group do ever since I joined, and seems very insightful. I have no idea of his combat ability, as he hasn't needed to fight yet.

Tobias Stone - The other leader of the team, Tobias is a spiny lizard in his late 30s. He has several roles, from what I've seen, including raising morale, adopting undercover identities with ease and planning for contracts. He has also reassured me several times, whenever he notices me feeling uneasy or alienated from the group.

Zachariah Hunter - Zack is a porcupine, and seems to be in his late 20s or early 30s. From what I've been told, he has a talent for shooting, and is an expert marksman. He told me that he can handle almost any firearm that's been invented, and that I should go and see him if I ever need help with guns. He hasn't realised that I have no interest in the things.

Kirah Hunter - Kirah is Zack's younger sister, and is her early 20s. She's very good at sneaking around, as she proved to me when she sneaked inside a military warehouse and stole some papers from inside, as well as a laptop that I had to hack into. She's been very friendly towards me ever since I arrived, probably because she was the only girl on the team before I was hired. The similarity of our names has, on occasion, caused a bit of confusion.

James John Zeach (pronounced Zee-ack) - James prefers his nickname, JJ. He is a hedgehog, and he's the same age as me. Skill-wise, he seems to have quite a few talents, including some degree of marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat skill and, despite his outward attitude, a sharp mind. He can act immaturely at times, and teases the rest of us often. The others are used to this, but I'm not.

Vincent Zonratic - Vincent is rarely called by his actual name, with the others usually nicknaming him "Zon". He's also the same age as me, and, like JJ, he's a hedgehog. I'm told he has a talent for driving almost anything, and is pretty good at shooting too. Out of all the mercenaries, Zon's the one I'm having most trouble getting to know. He is very quiet and usually stays out of non-work related conversations.

That's all I have at the moment. I hope I'll be more confident in speaking to my new companions now, but I doubt it. I need to try and remember to update this journal regularly, and if I get the chance, I will.

I have another job to do tonight, another assassination where my skills are needed. I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully helping with jobs like this will get easier in time, and hopefully my nightmares will stop.

Hopefully.

_Kara Tyler_


	2. No Job Too Big

Right then, first proper chapter of my first story. Good times.

If you're reading this and are looking for a Sonic-based story, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. I've classed this as a Sonic fic because it's set in my altered version of the game universe, but it won't explicitely involve any of the game characters. They might be mentioned, and the games' events will have impacts on the story, but the Sonic cast won't have an active role.

In this story at least.

But other than that, I hope you enjoy my first fic!

Crap, I forgot the disclaimer.

Anything belonging to SEGA (i.e place names, characters etc) is obviously copyrighted to SEGA.

All other characters and locations, organisations etc are copyright to me.

James "JJ" John Zeach is copyright to JJ4eva.

* * *

Westopolis.

Westopolis is a great city that has only recently become one of the major players in the world's most powerful nation, the United Federation. Ever since it was subject to the Black Arms' first strike, over two years ago, the city has received enormous subsidies from the government and, as a result, has enjoyed a huge boom in industry. Many of the richest companies in the world have set up in Westopolis, including the arms manufacturer TerranArms, the pharmaceutical Dyne Industries, as well as the world's, arguably, richest company, the Opal Corporation.

Of all the new companies, the Opal Corporation is by far the most important. They have set up their worldwide headquarters directly in the centre of Westopolis in the form of Opal Tower, a mammoth construction that towers ominously above all else in the city. As well as this, they have built several office blocks and research centres throughout the city, creating countless jobs and effectively saving the working people of Westopolis from unemployment.

However, beneath the surface of this seemingly renewed city, there lies a sinister heart. In the wake of the Black Arms' attack, the various crime syndicates of Westopolis, as well as other cities, began to move in and seize control. Unbeknownst to the public, in order to quell the rising number of offences in the city, the authorities, both local and federal, were forced to cut deals with the syndicates, allowing them to retain some control of the city. As such, the police are permitted to keep order in the city while turning a blind eye to some of the larger syndicates' activities.

However, independent criminals still act outside of this deal, working for whoever pays and disregarding the corrupt police and all-powerful syndicates. One small group of criminals such as this are currently stationed at one of the Opal Corporation's office complexes, getting ready to carry out a job that will affect the company for months to come.

Unfortunately, they haven't foreseen how it will affect them.

__________

Kara couldn't believe she was doing this. It was absurd!

She was sitting cross-legged next to an unconscious security guard in a small concrete booth at the entrance to one of the Opal Corporation's private car park, and was busy tapping commands into her laptop. The laptop was wired to the guard's computer, and through it, Kara was accessing the security system of the large, cube-like building behind her. Her job was to hack into the security system and deactivate it in certain sections of the building, allowing JJ, one of her fellow mercenaries, to make his way inside undetected.

His job, once inside, was to make his way to the office of a Mr Trey Baseer and assassinate him. This is what Kara found absurd. Trey Baseer was one of the highest ranked people within the Opal Corporation, and he was no stranger to being in the public eye. He was well known by anyone who watched the news, and his assassination would be plastered all over the media for weeks.

And Kara was a part of it. What had she gotten herself into?

"You alright there babe?"

Kara looked up at the porcupine who had addressed her. The porcupine's name was Kirah Hunter, and ever since Kara had joined the mercs, she seemed to have made it her personal mission to watch over her.

"I'm fine... just a bit nervous." Kara replied.

"If it's that guard you're sat next to, don't worry about it. I made sure that he won't be getting up anytime soon." Kirah replied with a sly wink.

Kara thought about telling her that the guard wasn't what was bothering her, but she decided against it and got back to work. Kirah stood guard above her, making sure that no-one interrupted her task. Although she doubted anyone would, considering it was almost midnight.

Both she and Kara had dressed in dark jeans and black long-sleeved tops, just in case anyone was around, but Kara seemed to dress like that most of the time anyway. Kirah, on the other hand, usually dressed in greens or browns; they went better with her light brown fur. She glanced down at the girl sitting cross-legged on the concrete, and it brought home just how out of place she seemed. To Kirah, she belonged in some university, not here, shutting down security systems so someone could be killed.

Within minutes Kara had hacked into the building's security systems, and had free reign over all the cameras, alarms and sensors inside. She trawled through all the systems until she found the ones she had to deactivate, and promptly did so.

"It's done." She said, looking up at Kirah.

Kirah nodded and pulled a slim mobile phone out of one of her one of her jeans' pockets. She punched a number in and within a few seconds she was connected.

"JJ, it's clear. Go." She said, keeping things brief and to the point. Now was not the time for games. Now was not the time for anything but cold, clear precision. She nodded at Kara and the lemur tapped a few more commands into her laptop.

"You better do this right JJ..." Kirah murmured to herself.

__________

James "JJ" John Zeach was standing outside one of the emergency exits when he got the call from Kirah. A few seconds later, the door in front of him clicked open, thanks to Kara, or the new girl, as JJ still called her.

He slipped inside the building and closed the door softly behind him. There wasn't likely to be anyone around, but he wasn't taking any chances. It was lucky for the mercs that Trey Baseer often stayed late at work, because it gave them the ideal opportunity to get to him. Thanks to his status, he was almost impossible to reach.

But not tonight.

JJ made his way down a dark corridor, his night vision helping him find his way. Being a hedgehog, a burrowing creature, his night vision was far in advance of a human's, allowing him to see exactly where he needed to go. He knew that Baseer's office was on the fourth floor, at the top of the cube-shaped building, and that he couldn't risk using the elevators to get up there. That meant he had to stick to the strict path that had been planned out the day before, the path along which Kara had deactivated the security.

JJ reached the building's main staircase, still without meeting anyone, and began to make his way up to the fourth floor. He ascended quickly and quietly, making sure his footsteps were all but inaudible.

It wasn't until he reached the top floor that he ran into trouble. Upon stepping up the last stair, he heard the faint sound of a vacuum cleaner. A janitor! He should have expected to run into one. The vacuum was coming closer by the sounds of it, so JJ promptly set about finding a place to hide. He didn't want to hurt the janitor if he didn't have to.

He dashed across the corridor and tried the door to one of the offices. Locked. He moved down the corridor, away from the sound of the vacuum and tried another door. It too was locked. He stopped to think, and realised that of course the doors would all be locked, the staff had all gone home and the doors would have locked electronically. However, if they were electronically locked, that meant Kara had access to them...

The janitor was coming closer. JJ quickly pulled out his phone and dialled Kirah's number. She picked up after two rings, the time it took for her to get the phone out of her pocket.

"Kirah!" JJ hissed, "Tell the new girl to unlock office number... 368!"

Kirah hung up without saying anything, and a few seconds later there was a faint click from the door next to JJ. He wrenched the now unlocked door open and pulled it over behind him, just as the janitor outside turned the corner to the corridor JJ was in.

JJ waited for a few minutes, and didn't leave the room until he heard the janitor switch off the vacuum and head downstairs. Once outside, he proceeded in the direction the janitor had come from, looking for office number 400; Baseer's office.

All the corridors looked the same; a straight corridor with offices lining the walls and occasionally a corner to keep things interesting. JJ spent several minutes walking around until he heard a voice, and immediately flattened himself against the wall he was walking next to. With any luck, his black shirt and jeans, along with his dark grey fur would keep him hidden. It took him a minute or so to realise that the voice he'd heard wasn't in the corridor, it was coming from one of the offices.

It had to be Baseer. JJ headed for the source of the voice and soon found himself standing in front of office 400. He took a deep breath and withdrew a heavily customised revolver from the back of his trousers. While he was composing himself, he could clearly hear Baseer on the other side of the door. He had a deep, purposeful voice, and it sounded like he was talking to someone.

Damn! He was in the middle of a phone call, and if JJ burst in now, the person on the other end would surely realise what was happening. So he listened in, waiting for the call to end.

"Yes... Yes I understand that, Nevio... What? Thorpe? You must be joking! He needs to straighten himself out before something happens... What? No, I'm afraid I still need to consider his offer... Yes... You'll get your money, don't worry about that... I see. Well, Mr Silvano, I'm afraid I must be going now... Yes... Goodbye then."

He finally put the phone down, and JJ stepped forward and pulled open the door to the office. Baseer looked up in obvious surprise when he entered, surprise which soon turned to anger.

"Who are you, and what in the Saviour's name do you think you're doing?" he demanded, standing up.

JJ didn't answer. Instead he let his weapon do the talking, lifting it from his side to point directly at Baseer.

"What... What are you doing?" Baseer asked, terror sneaking into his voice. "You can't do this to me... I have friends, powerful friends who will hunt you down for this!"

"They always do..." JJ muttered, and pulled back the hammer of the revolver.

"No... You're not going to do this, you can't! I have friends..." He said desperately.

"Your wife says to tell you 'This is for everything you've done to me and to Erik, I hope you rot in the nether realms you pig'."JJ said, repeating the message he'd been paid to say.

Baseer opened his mouth to reply, but JJ didn't give him the chance, firing three times and hitting Baseer in the chest twice and the neck once. JJ turned away and tucked his gun back into his trousers, not wanting to see the blood trickle over Baseer's dark skin and tan suit as he tumbled backwards to the floor, knocking his chair over. He swiftly left the office, abandoning stealth, and dashed downstairs to reach the girls outside.

__________

Kara was now standing with Kirah watching for JJ, and feeling sick to her stomach as she did. JJ had called ahead saying he was on his way down, meaning that he had been successful and that she had just helped someone to murder for the second time. She wasn't sure how many more times she could do it.

Suddenly Kirah tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked up and saw JJ pelting across the grass outside the building towards them. Kara set her laptop down on the desk in the booth and flipped it open, and then activated all the systems she had shut off to let JJ in. Once that was done she shut the laptop, pulled out the cable connecting it to the guard station, and joined Kirah in sprinting for the escape vehicle that was parked nearby.

Once they reached the car, a four door sports model belonging to JJ, they piled in while JJ vaulted over the bonnet and entered the driver's seat.

"All's well ladies," he said with a grin, slamming the car into gear, "You're in good hands."

"Shut up and drive, would you?" Kirah said, punching him playfully on the shoulder. Kara watched this brief exchange from the back seat and felt she should involve herself, but couldn't think of anything to say. So she sat back and allowed JJ to drive them through the city.

"Thanks for the save back there, by the way," JJ said, turning his head slightly to show he was speaking to Kara, "Without you, I would've probably had to take down that poor janitor. So I guess I'm actually thanking you from him."

"Yeah... That made a lot of sense JJ," Kirah said.

"Indeed it did. But seriously, thanks."

"Um... You're welcome?" Kara said, not knowing what janitor JJ was talking about.

About 10 minutes or so later, JJ pulled up outside a tall apartment building. This building was where Kirah lived, and where Kara was temporarily living. Kirah had offered to let Kara stay with her until she got a place of her own; Kara was new to Westopolis and didn't yet have her own home.

"This is your stop ladies, everybody out," JJ said, imitating a bus driver, and then added slyly, "I don't suppose there's any chance of me coming up with you two?"

"There's about as much chance of that as there is of an Eastern Europian cheese delicacy falling from the sky straight into my bra." Kirah replied snidely.

"I wait for the day..." JJ sighed, as the two girls exited the car. "Anyway, I'll see you two around."

And with that, he drove off, leaving Kara and Kirah to head up to their house. As they entered the building, Kirah noticed her lemur friend looking distinctly unhappy.

"Hey..." she said softly, putting an arm around Kara's shoulders, "What's up?"

Kara avoided her gaze and said: "I'm not sure how many more times I can help someone kill. I feel like a monster..."

"You're not a monster, Kara." Kirah said reassuringly. "Now come on, you'll feel better after a good night's sleep."

Kara thought about the nightmares she had been having, and sunk even further into despair.

"I hope so..." she replied unconvincingly.

__________

JJ had arrived home about 20 minutes after he dropped the girls off. He lived near the outskirts of the city in a luxury apartment development. From his house, he had great views of the Westopolis River and the countryside that surrounded the bustling city. But right now he wasn't savouring the view; he was calling his boss to tell him how the job went.

"Jin!" he exclaimed when his boss picked up, "Hope I didn't wake you."

"Not at all," Jin replied, "I assume everything went well?"

"That it did. Kara got me in, just like you said, I found Baseer, and after I waited for him to get off the damn phone with some 'Silvano' guy, I gave him the message and kille-"

"Did you say 'Silvano'?" Jin asked, cutting in.

"Yeah," JJ replied, Jin's tone making him feel uneasy, "He was on the phone to some guy called Silvano. What's up?"

"I had always heard that Baseer had connections, but this..." Jin muttered.

"Ok seriously Jin, what's up?"

He heard Jin sigh on the other end of the phone.

"Nevio Silvano is the head of the Silvano crime syndicate, JJ. And if Baseer was involved with him-"

"Then it's brown trousers time for us." JJ cut in. "That's fantastic, that's just fantastic."

"Did you leave any evidence that it was you? Anything Silvano could trace back to us?"

"Not that I know of... No."

"Alright," Jin sighed, "We should be fine. If he doesn't know it was us, we're fine."

"The key word in that sentence being 'should', Jin. What if he does find out?"

"Then, as you so eloquently put it, it's brown trousers time." Jin replied, without an ounce of humour. "I'm going to call everyone in tomorrow JJ. We need to discuss this with the rest of the team."

"Right. I'll see you tomorrow Jin." JJ said, and hung up. He turned and walked into his bedroom and, without bothering to undress, flopped onto his large, king-size bed.

"The damned syndicates..." he murmured, "We're screwed..."

* * *

So, how was that?

Criticism is welcomed, but if you are going to crit, please make it helpful. Unfortunately I won't be using any of your crits for chapters 1 to 7, 'cause I wrote them all before I submitted the story.

Ah well.

Thanks for reading!


	3. No Evidence Too Small

Hello again!

If you're reading this, I can only assume you've enjoyed the first two chapters, so I hope I continue to please!

And once again... Good times.

* * *

In Westopolis, murder was not uncommon. Not by a long shot.

But it wasn't everyday that someone like Trey Baseer was murdered. Usually, no one would have the guts to assassinate someone involved in either big business or one of the crime syndicates, never mind both. Baseer's murder would not go unnoticed by the businesses or the syndicates, and it would certainly not remain hidden from the press for long. Soon enough, reporters would swarm all over anyone and everyone connected to Baseer, and sooner or later, someone would let something slip. Something about Baseer's syndicate connections, and when that happened, everything would get a whole lot noisier in Westopolis.

These were the thoughts swirling through the mind of Detective Danielle Kurtis as she approached the murder scene. She wasn't a tall woman, but she wasn't exactly small either and her attitude more than made up for her lack of physical presence. She was a straight-to-the-point, means justify the ends type of woman, with dark hair and darker eyes, eyes that screamed out "cross me and I'll make sure you'll never have children". As usual, she was dressed smartly: a black suit with faint white pinstripes and a lavender-coloured top underneath. Much to the annoyance of her male colleagues, Kurtis didn't wear low-cut tops, and tonight was no exception.

It was 3am when she got the call, and by the time she arrived at the cube-like building, it was about 3:30. Apparently, a janitor had heard some gunshots and called the police, and a body had been found.

And here she was, about to have a look around the scene before the forensics people got there and deemed everything untouchable. There were very few officers around; probably all busy putting up yellow tape outside. All the officers that were on Baseer's floor avoided Kurtis' gaze, finding their feet and the walls very interesting all of a sudden. Kurtis smirked as she walked along the corridor to Baseer's office; it seemed she wasn't exactly popular with the 'ground troops'.

She entered the sizeable office and found that her senses had suddenly gone into overdrive. This always happened when she arrived at a crime scene; "detective's instinct" some called it.

She immediately headed for the desk, lifting up papers and having a look at them. Business deals... taxes... staff rotations... nothing useful. She put her hands in her pockets and looked around the room for anything useful, until her gaze settled on Baseer's corpse. He was sprawled on his back, his dark-skinned face contorted in a death scream. At a glance, Kurtis couldn't see any signs that there had been a struggle, but the fact that there were three bullet wounds, all in lethal places, ruled out suicide.

Embedded in the wall behind Baseer, in a thin strip of plaster and bricks between windows, there was a bullet. Kurtis leaned in close to it, and guessed that it was the bullet that had passed through Baseer's neck. It looked custom-made; if her bosses permitted her to lead the investigation, as they often didn't, she would ask the arms dealers around the city about anyone who had bought this particular type of bullet. She suspected she wouldn't get the chance though.

Kurtis knew she couldn't touch the body or the bullet, so she again turned her gaze to the room. Judging from Baseer's placement on the floor and the upturned chair that he had presumably been sitting on, Kurtis would have guessed that his murderer had been on the other side of the desk, and the force of the shots had sent Baseer backwards to the floor. She strode around the desk and stood where she reckoned the killed would have been standing, trying to get a feel for the situation leading to the murder.

She thought over everything she knew so far, searching for something that might help her make sense of the killing. Although, a man like Baseer would likely have had plenty of enemies; it was common knowledge to the police that he had syndicate connections.

The guard at the security booth on the way in said that once he woke up and checked the security systems, he found that some of them had been shut off for nearly 20 minutes. Combined with the exact precision of the bullets in Baseer, it confirmed to Kurtis that this was a professional hit. She never had any doubt about that, really; no-one but a professional would dare kill Baseer.

Then she thought about it again. 20 minutes? There's no way it took that long to get inside the building, get up to Baseer's office and kill him. It had only taken her five from the main gate, and she had been strolling casually. So why had it taken so long? So far, there were no reports of anything stolen from the building, and if it was a professional, there's no way they'd have taken their time. That meant they were waiting for something, but what?

Kurtis paced the office, thinking it through. She did this for several minutes, until by chance her gaze fell upon the silver phone on Baseer's desk. Of course! If Baseer was in the middle of a call when the killer showed up, then that killer would have had to wait until he got off the phone. But he was he calling? Whoever it was, they might know something about why Baseer was killed.

The detective decided to find out. She took a pair of leather gloves from her pocket and slipped them on; just to make sure she didn't leave her fingerprints on the phone and give the forensics bad ideas. She picked up the wireless phone, found her way through to the most recent numbers, and selected the one at the top of the list, calling it. After about three rings, the person on the other end picked up.

"My dear Trey!" a slightly Europian accented voice answered. "Did we miss something in our earlier call?"

Kurtis closed her eyes and smirked. She knew that voice. Everyone with a badge knew that voice. Nevio Silvano, leader of the Silvano crime syndicate and possibly one of the most powerful men in the city. Kurtis put the phone down and pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.

"Dammit..." she murmured, slipping her gloves off. Whether she had answered Silvano or not, he would soon figure out that something was going on. And once that happened, the investigation would immediately be commandeered by his men inside the department.

There was nothing more she could learn here without forensics, and now that she had inadvertently alerted Silvano to the situation, she doubted she'd get anything from them either. She turned and strode out of the office, heading back home to catch up on some pointlessly lost sleep.

"Dammit..." she murmured again.

__________

Kara Tyler woke up drenched in a cold sweat, visions of blood and death swirling through her head. Ever since she had first helped the mercenaries kill, she had been plagued by visions like this every night, and she was losing a lot of sleep because of it. She looked at the digital clock next to her bed, reading the time as 5:38am. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and got up, knowing there was no way she'd get back to sleep.

She got out of her large bed and headed to the on-suite bathroom and turned on the cold tap, splashing her face with the water. Straightening up and looking in the mirror, she saw an 18 year old lemur with bloodshot eyes looking back at her. Her black and white fur was messy, and her shoulder-length black hair followed suit, deciding to stick out at all sorts of strange angles.

Not bothering to get dressed, Kara walked through to her friend's large living room in her pyjamas and curled up in the corner of one of the large, curved red sofas. She watched the city outside through the wall-size windows that lined the outside edge of Kirah's home. The apartment was on the top floor of a building that could easily be 40 stories tall, and it gave Kara a great view of the city coming to life. This morning, the sky had been coated with foreboding grey clouds, and there was a light drizzle making the city outside dull and depressing. It looked as bad as she felt.

She often sat like this and watched the city, all the while thinking about what was going on around her. It was hard to believe, sitting in this expensive apartment, that she was a member of one of the nation's most infamous mercenary groups. What was harder to believe was that she had started out fairly normally in life, and somehow ended up here.

As the sun tried to rise above the clouds and grubby buildings of the city before her, Kara heard soft footsteps approaching behind her. Looking round, she saw Kirah walking tiredly out of her bedroom, also just wearing her pyjamas. The tan-furred porcupine walked around the sofas and sat down next to Kara, and joined her in looking out of the window.

"You alright babe?" she asked, looking over at Kara. "You look like you've been having those dreams again."

"I have," Kara replied quietly, "They're just there, every time I go to sleep, and they're not going to go away..."

"Look, if you're feeling guilty over Baseer, then don't." Kirah said, matter-of-factly. "That guy had it coming."

"It doesn't change the fact that I helped kill him..."

"You didn't kill anyone, Kara. I'm not even sure you could."

Kara looked over at her, mystified.

"You're better than the rest of us Kara," Kirah said truthfully, "You're not just a heartless criminal; you're a good, caring person. That's more than can be said for me."

Kara was going to reply, but couldn't find the right words. So instead, she just smiled at her friend. Kirah understood the gesture and smiled back. The pair sat for a while longer, just looking at the world together, before Kirah stood up and tapped Kara on the shoulder.

"Come on you," she said, "Go and get dressed. We'll go and get some breakfast, then Jin wants us to head over to his. Apparently he's got something to talk to us all about."

Kara nodded and stood up, stretching as she did so, and headed over to her room. Before she entered, however, she turned round to face Kirah.

"Kirah..." she said uncertainly, "Thanks."

"Anytime babe. Now come on, we gotta go."

Kara nodded and disappeared into her room, while Kirah stood smiling in the living room. She was wondering what was so important that Jin would text everyone to come in that afternoon. It had to be something big. It was either a big contract, or something big had gone wrong.

She hoped it was the former.

__________

Jin Lenea was waiting patiently in his living room for JJ to arrive. The hedgehog was the only one not yet here, and considering that he was the first one informed of the meeting, Jin was understandably beginning to lose his patience.

Jin was one of the founders of the mercs, and had been leading it with his partner Tobias Stone for over 10 years. Before that, he had been a member of various other criminal organisations, and had almost been daring the authorities to catch him ever since his teens. He was a grey-furred wolf with an authoritative figure and a calm head, able to stay cool even under the most stressful situations. His clothes reflected his attitude, casual but smart. He wore a pair of dark blue jeans with a black suit jacket and a brown t-shirt.

His house was an expensive one on the northern outskirts of the city, and to say it was comfortable was an understatement. It had two floors, four bedrooms each with their own on-suite bathroom, a huge kitchen joined to the equally huge living room and a large back garden. The living room that the mercs were in now was furnished with two long sofas, a glass coffee table between them and a 42" inch television in the corner of the room. The outside wall had a huge window that provided a wide view of the grass and stone path in front of the house.

Without warning, the front door to the house opened and JJ strolled in quite the thing, seemingly oblivious to the glares he received as he walked across the room and plonked himself down next to Kirah. As usual, the hedgehog was dressed in a casual black shirt and navy blue jeans, accompanied by a pair of black trainers with a flame-like pattern on the sides. His emerald green eyes oozed mischievous charm, but unknown to most, they also glimmered with a thinly concealed rage. His spines were damp due to the gradually worsening rain outside, but they took no notice of the rain and stuck up like usual.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked nonchalantly, "I hope you haven't started without me."

"Wouldn't dream of it. But next time I call a meeting, try to come in before I start decomposing, would you?" Jin retorted.

JJ smirked and sat back, easing himself into the expensive sofa, and took a small steel lighter out of his pocket and began playing with it. Kirah sat next to him, wearing jeans and a light green top, and Kara was on the other side of her, dressed in all black as usual. On the other sofa, which was positioned at a right angle to the first, Zack, Zon and Tobias were all looking at Jin, waiting for him to speak. Jin was standing in front of the room's large window, and clasped his hands together, which everyone present knew was a sign of important news.

"Right..." Jin began. "As you all know, last night JJ assassinated Trey Baseer. Until he called me to tell me how things had gone, I assumed the job would be carried out without a hitch. But JJ heard something before he killed Baseer, something that could come back and not just bite us in the ass, but completely rip it off and cremate the remains.

"It seems that Baseer was good friends with Nevio Silvano, head of the Silvano crime syndicate. I'm sure I don't need to explain how serious this is to any of you. If Silvano somehow finds out that we were involved, he'll likely kill us all. So, no matter what any of you are offered to talk, you give away nothing. Understand?"

Everyone in the room nodded, fully understanding their situation. Tobias raised his head to ask a question. He was a spiny lizard with grey-brown scales and a kind nature. He was also one of the sharpest tools in the shed, and he always had either a question or a solution to offer. He wore, as usual, a smart, non-creased suit; black jacket and trousers with a navy blue shirt. He didn't wear a tie; Tobias couldn't stand ties.

"I assume we've considered the possibility of Silvano finding out on his own, and are going to come up with a contingency plan?" he asked Jin. Despite being in joint control of the mercs, Tobias always treated Jin as the true leader.

"That's one of the things we're here to discuss." Jin answered. "Anyone got any suggestions?"

"I say we leg it." JJ said bluntly, flicking his lighter shut. "I mean, if we have a syndicate boss hunting us, what other choice do we have?"

"What about assassinating Silvano?" Zack asked. Zack was Kirah's big brother, and was very similar in appearance. His fur was a slightly darker shade of brown, and his eyes were deep blue unlike his sister's own lilac ones, but otherwise, they were very similar. Zack wore a black t-shirt with a metal band's logo on it and torn blue jeans, making him look like an old-style rocker.

"Assassinating him would do no good, Zack, someone else would just rise to take his place and come after us anyway."

"Could we pay him off?" Kirah asked as her brother sat back. "I mean, he's a businessman right? So in the end, all he really wants is money."

Jin considered this briefly, then replied: "That could work, but it would depend how much he asked for and, of course, how close his ties were to Baseer. If they were good friends, he may just come after us for revenge."

"All of this is assuming he actually finds out anything..." Zon muttered quietly. Like JJ, he was a hedgehog, but that was where the similarities ended. Zon had none of JJ's humour or charm; instead he was cynical, antisocial and brooding. He had blood-red fur and wore a black long-sleeved top and navy blue jeans. He usually wore an ankle-length trench coat as well, but there was little point indoors.

"We need to be ready Zon, just in case." Tobias chided.

Zon's scowled and sat back, arms folded. Then his golden eyes widened all of a sudden, and he quickly said: "We need to be ready full stop. He's here."

Everyone in the room immediately fixed their eyes where Zon was looking, and saw that he wasn't joking. No surprise there. Nevio Silvano, flanked by two large bodyguards, was making his way through the rain outside and up the front steps to Jin's house. Jin said nothing and quickly assessed the situation, then told everyone but Tobias to get out of the room and find a vantage point. They didn't need to be told twice and cleared out, Kara lagging slightly behind the rest.

Silvano didn't bother knocking and simply strolled in the front door as though he owned the place.

"Jin... Jin... Jin..." he said dramatically. "You've made the biggest mistake of your life, my friend." Silvano oozed power from every pore, and he knew how to use it to good effect. He was dressed in an expensive navy-blue pinstriped suit, with a black shirt and dark purple tie. He was a tall, thin man, but he had the presence of a heavyweight boxer.

"Cut the theatrics, Silvano, what are you doing here?" Jin asked, completely disregarding the man's status.

Silvano, however, didn't skip a beat and reached into the inside of his suit. Jin moved onto the balls of his feet, ready to defend himself if need be. He was surprised when Silvano didn't produce a gun, but instead withdrew a small plastic bag that looked like it belonged in a forensics lab.

"Do you know what these are?" Silvano asked, shaking the bag.

"They're bullets." Tobias said bluntly. "What do they have to do with us?"

"Oh, they have everything to do with you." Silvano replied threateningly. "You see, I have several operatives inside the Westopolis Police Department, and they retrieved these from the body of Trey Baseer. Do you have any idea who put them there?"

"We didn't even know he was dead." Jin replied.

"I see. Unfortunately for you, Jin, I had these bullets analysed by a local arms dealer and he revealed that they were custom made. He also revealed that he only sells this type of bullet to one person in this city. And that person is a member of your team, Jin."

Jin's face remained completely unchanged, not revealing any of the fear or anger he now felt. He weighed up his options carefully, and decided that perhaps appealing to Silvano's ego might prove beneficial.

"Okay, Silvano. Okay. We took a contract that required us to kill your man, and we did. It was just another job; nothing personal. To be honest, I was worried that you might show up, but I didn't expect you so soon."

Silvano smirked.

"Jin, if you're trying to talk your way out of this, then please, stop. Although, you are right about this being nothing personal; Baseer was just a business associate. But he owed me a lot of money, and now you're going to pay it on his behalf."

Jin sneered and considered telling Silvano where to shove it, but he quickly thought better of it.

"Okay," he sighed, "How much?"

"Well..." Silvano said, obviously pretending to work out a sum in his head, despite the fact that he knew how much he was going to ask for ever since he received the bullets.

"I think that about... 4 million should cover it?"

Tobias' eyes widened noticeably and Jin's fists clenched. They didn't have that much on them, as Silvano knew full well.

"I'm afraid we can't pay that much right now Silvano," Jin said, keeping his cool.

"Well, we'll have to do something about that, now won't we?"

He clicked his fingers and the bodyguards flew towards Tobias at a terrifying pace. Jin moved faster, however, and moved between the huge men and Tobias, grabbing the forearm of the closest one and using his momentum against him, flipping him over his shoulder into the wooden floor with a loud crash.

The other man had reached Tobias and was pulling out a gun, but Jin had swept in close to him within a second and drove his foot directly onto the side of the bodyguard's shin, snapping it with an audible crunch. As the man fell, Jin followed up with a backhand blow to the face and turned to glare at Silvano as the huge man crashed to the ground.

Silvano found all of this very amusing. The bodyguards meant nothing to him, and watching two nearly 7 feet tall men get destroyed by a 4 foot tall wolf was nothing if not entertaining.

"Tut, tut Jin..." Silvano said, smirking. "You really shouldn't have done that. 5 million. One week. Get it done."

And with those closing words, he turned and walked out of the house, leaving his two bodyguards to agonisingly help each other up. After a minute or so of grunting and growling, the two men followed their boss out into the rain and into the waiting car. Jin had already forgotten about them, however, and was busy asking Tobias if he was okay.

"I'm fine Jin, seriously." The lizard said irritably. He was visibly shaken however; like Kara, Tobias wasn't used to being involved in the more violent aspects of life.

The rest of the mercs gradually filtered back into the room after they were certain Silvano had left.

"Jin..." JJ said, in awe, "That was awesome! Seriously, you need to teach me how to do that stuff."

"I have done, JJ," Jin replied, "Many times..."

"Oh yeah..."

Jin composed himself and turned to glare at JJ.

"What did you think you were doing, using custom bullets? Anyone could have traced them to you, least of all Silvano!"

"I wasn't thinking, alright?" JJ replied, surprised by Jin's outburst. "I didn't think there'd be a problem."

"I'm assuming you didn't buy them from Simm?" Jin asked.

"No..."

"How many times..." Jin growled, his usually calm demeanour disappearing for a few seconds. "How many times have I told you? All of you! If you're buying weapons, only buy from Simm! He can be trusted, and his stuff is untraceable!"

"Okay, okay... I'm sorry..." JJ muttered, sounding almost exactly like a scolded child.

The mercs stood around aimlessly for a few minutes, before Kirah broke the awkward silence and asked the obvious question.

"So, what do we do?"

Jin took the question on board, weighed up all the options in his mind, and found himself with only one possible answer.

"We go out to McGrady's, and forget all of this for a night."

* * *

Ooh... What will our far-from-heroes do now?

More than likely: get hammered.

Onward!


	4. Murderous Intentions

And I shall now introduce you to one of the players in this story who will become more important as we go on: Vincent Zonratic.

What's he up to?

You know how to find out.

* * *

A few hours ago, 5 to be precise, Vincent Zonratic witnessed the syndicate boss Silvano threaten his own boss, Jin Lenea, and demand that he pay 5 million rings by the end of next week. This sickened Zon to his stomach. Silvano knew full well when he asked that they didn't have that kind of money, and so, he manipulated the situation into a form that made Jin owe him more.

And while the rest the mercs may be happy to go out and drink their problems away, Zon was not.

Right now he was riding full pelt towards one of Silvano's warehouses on his high power motorcycle, aiming to gain a small revenge against the syndicate boss. He had had ample time to find out about the warehouse in the 5 hours since Silvano had visited, through "talking" to several thugs around the city. His mission may be petty, but Zon didn't much care. Silvano had tried to kill one of the mercs, Tobias, who was almost a father to Zon, so the hedgehog decided to repay him in kind. But unlike Silvano, he wouldn't screw up.

Granted, Jin hadn't asked him to do this and, if he was caught, it would just make the situation much worse. But he would make sure that he wouldn't be caught, and he'd make sure that Silvano didn't suspect the mercs' involvement. He didn't know how yet; maybe he'd frame someone once he got there, maybe he'd make sure there were no witnesses left to identify him, maybe he'd... well, he'd figure out when he got there.

Right now, he was speeding through the outskirts of the eastern section of the city, heading for the Industrial District. He expertly overtook a human who fancied himself a racer and screeched round a corner, arriving on a thin road riddled with potholes and craters. The city's governors clearly didn't pay much attention to this part of the city. As he rode on, his bike's suspension soaking up the majority of the bumps, the Westopolis River came into view on his left, flowing past in all its grubby glory.

As usual, the river was full of rubbish and discarded weapons, as well as other, unseen things. Things that were once alive. The river's appearance marked the beginning of the Industrial District, and Zon sped up, anxious to scout out the warehouse before he started anything.

Night was falling, and it was the ideal time for a mission such as Zon's. His dark fur and black clothes would allow him to blend into the shadows and remain undetected while he worked. Within minutes of entering the Industrial District, Zon found the warehouse he was looking for and drove past it, trying to sneak a glance inside as he did so. He pulled into a muddy alleyway between two warehouses a few hundred metres down the road, and switched off his bike's rumbling engine.

Getting off the bike, he surveyed his surroundings and then began walking down the alley towards a door in the side of the warehouse, his long trench coat flowing behind him as he moved. Reaching the door, he tried opening it but found it locked. At this time of night there wasn't likely to be anyone around, but he didn't want to take the risk of anyone hearing him kick the door in. Unlike Kirah, Zon wasn't versed in the arts of lock picking. Instead, he looked around again, his golden eyes settling on a drainpipe that climbed up the wall of the warehouse on his left.

The pipe looked old but sturdy, and Zon judged that it should be capable of holding his weight. Pulling his fingerless gloves tight on his hands, he took hold of the pipe and began pulling himself up the side of the building. Within a minute, he reached the corrugated roof and started moving across to the other side, the side closest to Silvano's warehouse. Once there, he crouched down, keeping out of sight while giving him a clear view of the entire complex.

The warehouse, like the one he was on, was two floors tall and looked somewhat dilapidated. It was surrounded by a tall brick wall topped by anti-vandal glass, with a sturdy gate at the front of the building, and a few lazy guards playing cards. Considering it was a compound owned by one of the city's most powerful men, it looked fairly easy to break into.

Zon reached inside his coat with his right hand and retrieved a silver pistol from one of his underarm holsters. One of its bullets would find its way into the head of the lieutenant inside the warehouse before the night was over, and anyone else who got in Zon's way would meet the same fate.

Zon took one last look around, and then hopped off the edge of the building.

__________

McGrady's pub was the epitome of classic drinking establishments in Westopolis. Owned by Bill McGrady, whose family hailed from the small Europian island of Eire, the pub was popular among those less obliged to obey the law thanks to Bill's non-judgemental attitude. In McGrady's, you knew you were safe from the police, and they knew not to show their faces anywhere near the place. Inside, the pub was usually quite dark, but it had a friendly atmosphere. Friendly as long as you stayed out of trouble and didn't start anything, that is.

The walls of the pub were lined with pictures of various landmarks and events from around the world; the Lava Reef volcano, the Soleanna Sun Festival, Station Square's Statue of Victory and Chun-Nan's Dragon Road, to name a few. Tables and chairs were set up along the walls of the pub opposite the bar itself, and there was a small dance floor for those more adventurous drinkers in the corner.

It was at one of the tables that Kara, Jin and Tobias sat. JJ and Kirah were doing the ever-popular drunken dance in the corner, while Zack was chatting to Bill McGrady, who was also the principal barman of the pub. They had been in the pub for a couple of hours now, and night had fallen outside. In that time, Kara had had a few drinks, and her shyness was slowly retreating while her tongue loosened.

"I take it you two'll go another round?" Jin asked, turning to his two companions.

They both nodded, and he set off for the bar. Kara and Tobias sat in silence for a few moments, before Kara spoke.

"So how'd you end up here?" she asked the lizard, inadvertently leaning closer to him.

"Me?" he answered, "I came here in the same car as you. How much have you drank?"

"Don't be a tool, I meant in the mercs. How'd you end up in the mercs?"

"You don't handle drink well, do you?" Tobias replied, smirking at the lemur's drastic change in attitude.

"You're being evasive; tell me how you got here!" Kara exclaimed drunkenly, leaning closer to the lizard.

"Whoa," Tobias said, leaning away from Kara. "Alright, okay, I'll tell you. It's not exactly a thrilling tale though."

Kara shrugged and sat back, satisfied.

"Well, I met Jin about 20 years ago, while he was still working for one of the syndicates, and-"

"Wait, Jin worked for a syndicate?" Kara butted in.

"Well, yeah. He hasn't always been the leader of the mercs you know. It was before the Black Arms attacks, before the syndicates gained the power they have today. And it wasn't Silvano's syndicate either, if that's what you're thinking."

"Well, that'd be pretty bad wouldn't it?" Kara said, grinning. "If Jin worked for Silvano and now he's being blackmailed by him. But anyway, you met Jin, and..."

"And I started helping him out with his work. It was usually just theft or intimidation work, but as we worked our way up the ranks of the syndicate, we found ourselves being ordered to kill more and more often. Now, I never took part in the violent aspects of the business; I posed as someone else so I could steal something, or learn something, but never any violence."

Tobias stopped for a moment to take a drink of his beer, and then continued with his story.

"Anyway, we did as we were told, and eventually I found myself just turning off when there was violence around me. I no longer cared. One day, I suspect you'll have the same attitude."

"Maybe..." Kara murmured. "But come on! Let's not talk about that, it's a bit depressing."

"Of course. Back to the story then, I suppose. Where was I...?"

"You and Jin were killing people, silly."

"Of course we were." Tobias said, looking at Kara suspiciously. She had had less to drink than he had, but she was far, far drunker than he was. It was glaringly obvious that she didn't handle alcohol well.

"Yes, I helped Jin kill people that needed killing, but eventually we grew tired of doing what the syndicate boss asked us to and we left. We'd had enough of, what was basically, well-paid servitude. By that point we had plenty of money, and we bought a house together on the outskirts of the city, where we live now, and founded the mercs. We've been leading the mercs now for about 16 years."

"Wait," Kara said, looking up suddenly, "You and Jin are... a couple?"

Tobias snorted loudly, causing a few other people in the pub to look round at him.

"Oh come on Kara!" he exclaimed, "Don't tell me you hadn't figured that one out, I mean, it's hardly a secret."

"Well... I... I suspected..."

"Why do think I left a perfectly normal job in the city once I met him? Why do you think I'm wrapped up in this tangled web of crime?" Tobias asked. "Wait... it's not a problem, is it?"

"A problem?" Kara said, "No, not at all. It was just... unexpected. Kinda."

"Uh-huh..." Tobias said, smirking. "You know, Kara, you don't seem very drunk anymore. It's almost as though that little revelation's sobered you up."

Kara looked at him shyly, and then looked around the bar, feeling embarrassed. Tobias noticed this, and backed off, giving her time to regain her composure. He wasn't sure why she was embarrassed, possibly because she'd suddenly sobered up and realised how she was acting.

They both had a few more drinks, and when Tobias sensed Kara had calmed herself, he tried to rekindle the conversation.

"So what about you, Kara?" he asked. "I know how you ended up with us, obviously, since I interviewed you for the job, but why are you here?"

Kara looked at him anxiously, and then didn't answer and began looking around the bar, as though searching for something to say.

"Something wrong?" Tobias asked, sensing the tense atmosphere immediately.

"I... well..." Kara said hesitantly. "I'd rather not say."

"Fair enough, I'll leave it alone." Tobias replied.

Kara was relieved to see Jin finish a conversation with Zack and McGrady and turn to come back to the table, drinks in hand. He sat down and handed out the drinks, noticing the lingering tension in the air as he did so.

"So, what were you two talking about?" he asked.

"I was just telling Kara about how I ended up here, and how we founded the mercs," Tobias replied, turning to look at his partner.

Jin nodded nostalgically, glanced over at JJ and Kirah, and burst laughing. It transpired that JJ was running up the walls and doing back flips, cart wheeling around the floor and generally just going hyper. Kirah, meanwhile, continued her drunken dance while JJ flipped around her, oblivious to the hedgehog's antics.

"Idiots..." he murmured fondly.

"I wonder where Zon is?" Tobias asked suddenly, as though it had just struck him that the hedgehog wasn't here.

Kara wondered the same thing. He had disappeared earlier in the day saying he had business to attend to. What business did he mean? Considering what Kara had learned since she joined the mercs, she suspected she probably didn't want to know.

__________

It had been an insultingly easy task for Zon to get over Silvano's warehouse wall. Some idiotic henchmen had left a pick-up truck parked right next to the wall, and Zon had no trouble jumping on top of it to then hop over the anti-vandal glass and land silently on the weed-filled gravel beyond. From there, he had waited until the guards were looking the other way and crept to the wall of the warehouse.

Right now, the hedgehog had one of his large ears pressed against the back door of the building, listening intently for any movement inside. When he heard none, he tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it and stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him. Inside, he saw that the warehouse was filled with guns and drugs, laid out on long, room-spanning tables. To his right, there was a steel staircase leading up to an office, presumably where the lieutenant was. It was strange that there was no-one in the warehouse, but it was also fortunate; there was nowhere Zon could hide if anyone came in.

He turned and made his way softly up the stairs, gun in hand. When he reached the top, he barely paused before kicking the door open and levelling his pistol at the room's only occupant. The man stood up from behind his desk, eyes wide and mouth agape. He was holding a needle in his hand and was about to push it into his neck when Zon entered. The room was long, but not wide, with the man and his desk at the far end and the walls lined with filing cabinets and shelves.

"Who are you, and what do you want from me?" the man asked Zon. The fact that he wasn't terrified intrigued the hedgehog; it meant this wasn't the first time he had faced a gun. Either that or he was high. He had pale, waxy skin and was missing most of his hair; whether through stress or genetics Zon couldn't tell. He was wearing an expensive blue suit and a grey shirt, as well as an expensive-looking watch. Using his keen eyesight, Zon could see various needle marks on his neck, almost hidden by his shirt collar. This man was a regular user.

"Who I am isn't important. Who are you, and how important are you to Silvano?" Zon replied, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him.

"Why do you want to know that?" the man asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Answer the question." Zon snarled.

"Alright, alright. My name's Riley Thorpe. I'm one of Nevio's close friends. Now why do you need to know that?"

"You don't ask the questions here." Zon growled. "Now, what do you do for Silvano? How important are you to him business-wise?"

"I handle all the guns and drugs that are shipped in and out of the city." Thorpe replied. "My work makes up roughly 10% of the syndicate's cash inflow."

Zon almost smirked. This man was more important to Silvano than he could have hoped, and his death would have a sizeable impact on both Silvano himself as well as his business. However, he had to make sure no-one knew he was involved, and he'd come up with a plan to that effect as soon as he'd entered the office.

"Alright, that's all I needed to know. Move." Zon said callously, motioning towards the door with his weapon.

Thorpe was about to reply, but decided against it and started walking. Once he reached the door, and Zon was behind him, the hedgehog holstered his weapon and grabbed the man from behind. He snatched the needle from the Thorpe's right hand and, before he could cry out, inserted it steadily into his neck. Zon emptied the contents of the needle into the lieutenant then pulled it out and opened the door. He threw the used syringe into a bin to his right.

"What d'you think you're doing?" the lieutenant gasped, Zon's forearm tight around his throat. "If anything happens to me, Silvano will-"

"That's the point." Zon said, cutting him off mid-sentence. With a glint of malice in his eyes, he let go of the lieutenant and pushed him, hard. Thorpe cried out as he fell forward, but his cries were snuffed out as quickly as they came as he tumbled down the steel steps. He bounced into the floor at the bottom with a gut-wrenching crunch, and blood slowly started to seep from his head.

Zon glanced around, making sure there were no witnesses, and then swiftly descended the staircase. He checked the lieutenant's body for a pulse, and upon finding none, he stepped over the body and exited the warehouse.

His job was done.

__________

Jin's phone was ringing.

He and Tobias were on their way home from McGrady's, after dropping off the two girls and JJ. Jin was hoping that Kara would have a clear enough mind to help the even drunker Kirah up to her apartment. JJ, on the other hand, was doing well considering he had drunk nearly half the bar. Well enough to walk to his apartment in a straight line, anyway.

Tobias was driving, and he had just turned the corner into their street when Jin's phone began ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, and his eyes narrowed when the caller was identified as unknown. That could only mean one thing; someone was offering them work. He flipped the phone open and pressed it to his ear.

"What do you need done?" he asked, preferring to skip socialisation and get straight to business. Tobias glanced over at him and nodded when Jin mouthed the word "work".

"We require someone to be killed, and certain documents retrieved from them." The caller replied. The voice was distorted, meaning the caller didn't want their identity revealed. That suited Jin just fine.

"Alright, who's the target?"

"An FIA agent named Antony Isaacs. He has stolen important documents from us, and he may have made digital copies of the information on those documents. You must kill him, retrieve the documents, and search his computer for any digital copies. If you find any, bring us the hard drive along with the documents."

Jin agreed to the terms and set a price, finding out the home address of the agent as he did so. He was taken aback at first at the fact that the hit was on an agent of the Federal Investigative Agency, but he quickly remembered his situation and knew that he had to accept any job that was offered. They needed all the money they could get.

Once he was finished, he clicked the phone shut and turned to Tobias as they pulled into the driveway of their house. Tobias turned off the engine and looked round to face him, curious as to what the job was. Because when Jin had a look on his face like the one he had now, Tobias knew he was serious.

"We've got work to do."

* * *

Business is picking up, and we've had a bit of an action scene!

If you're enjoying this, let me know!

If you're not, let me know!

Just... just let me know. In general.


	5. Journal Entry 02

21-3-2018

Journal Entry 02: Tobias and Jin

* * *

Last night, after Silvano gave us his ultimatum (which terrifies me, but I'm coping), Jin took us all out to McGrady's bar to forget our troubles. As the night went on, I became more and more confident, and eventually my tongue loosened up. I asked Tobias about how he had ended up with the mercs, and I even insulted him when he gave me the wrong answer! I must have been even drunker than I thought. It got later, and after Jin came back to the table, the pair told me their joint accounts of how the mercs came to be.

Apparently, Tobias met Jin about 20 years ago, in 1998, when he was still in his late teens. He and Jin became good friends, and as their friendship turned into something more, Tobias left his city job to join Jin in his syndicate work. Jin worked for the Dross syndicate, owned by Alger Dross, one of the more powerful organisations of the day. He and Tobias committed many crimes together, including theft, intimidation, armed robbery, grand theft auto and many others. It was during this time that Tobias discovered that his talent for acting came in handy, often impersonating someone of great importance in order to get near someone or something.

Then Jin told me something very interesting indeed. Apparently, he and Tobias knew both JJ and Zon's parents'! Zon's mother and JJ's father both joined the Dross syndicate during Tobias' time there, and Jin had been good friends with Zon's father and JJ' mother for several years.

I commented on what a strange coincidence it was that Jin and Tobias knew both of the hedgehogs' parents and now they worked for them, but Jin told me it was no coincidence. I tried to probe further, but both of the leaders refused to tell me anymore, saying I should ask Zon or JJ about it. I would, but both of them make me nervous; JJ because of his unpredictable personality, and Zon because of his predictable personality.

But I'm going off at a tangent, as I often do when I'm writing. Back to Jin and Tobias' story, I think. About 2 years after Tobias met Jin and joined the syndicate, in 2000, JJ and Zon's parents left and retired to Alba, both mothers heavily pregnant. I guess that means both JJ and Zon are Alban. Anyway, Jin and Tobias stayed on for another few years after their friends left, but eventually retired from the syndicate and bought their current house. They lived there in peace for a few years, but Jin remarked that "Old habits die hard," and the pair founded the mercs.

Since then, the mercs have been through several incarnations until arriving at the form it's in at the moment. Jin and Tobias say they're very happy together, and equally as happy with the current members of their group. I asked them if they had ever considered a Union, but they told me that they didn't see the point. Jin said: "We love each other, why should we get silly rings and bracelets and stuff to show it?"

As my mother used to say, "You live and learn," and I've certainly learnt a lot since I joined the mercs. I'm finally starting to feel as though I belong; although that may be the after-effects of the beer I drank. Jin says he has another job for us, and that he'll need my help with it. He's going to send Kirah and Zack to scout out a hotel that someone important is staying at this afternoon, and said that I should rest and get myself ready to work tomorrow night. I'm trying to stay optimistic about this, even though I suspect it's another assassination.

I'm starting to feel good about joining the mercs now; although, as I said, that may be the drink talking. It's only been about six hours since I got home and it's seeming like I don't handle alcohol well.

One thing that has been bothering me, though, is that ever since I joined, my sense of right and wrong has been getting weaker. I'm finding it more and more difficult to tell "good" and "bad" apart, and it scares me. I can only hope that I don't become completely amoral, and turn into the monster that I feel like.

I hope to learn more about my fellow mercenaries soon, so I can get to know them and maybe feel less wary of them. I can't honestly say I trust them all yet.

_Kara Tyler_


	6. Third Time's the Charm

Ooh... we've learned a bit of backstory now. If you care.

And now, how will Kara cope with another assassination?

* * *

The night was cold and lifeless, a sure sign of the approaching winter. The streets were devoid of life, save for a few unfortunate vagrants and the odd sly criminal, and were the furthest thing imaginable from welcoming. Certainly, there were lights plastering the city centre, but there was still an air of uneasiness hanging over the city.

Of course, it might just have been hanging over Kara.

The lemur was making her way inside one of the city's most luxurious hotels, by the back entrance of course, with JJ walking a few paces ahead of her. He had picked the lock of the staff entrance, using his lighter to see in the dark alleyway. Once inside, the pair found themselves in a large kitchen, which during the day would have been bustling with activity. As it was, the kitchen was deserted. Nevertheless, JJ and Kara gingerly made their way through to the hotel's staff passageways, careful to make as little noise as possible.

The staff passageways were a series of corridors that ran all around the hotel, below ground level, allowing the staff to move around without disturbing guests. There were several elevators dotted around in these passageways, and the two mercenaries were quietly making a beeline for the closest one. Kirah and Zack had gotten a good look around the hotel the day before, and Zack had been able to draw up blueprints of the areas they would need to visit. Apparently it was a skill he had learned while in the Special Forces. Kirah, meanwhile, had discerned that the hotel's security was nothing overly special, and that JJ and Kara would be more than capable of getting inside.

However, it wasn't getting inside that worried Kara. What worried her was the fact that, for the third time since joining the mercs, she was going sit back and let someone get murdered. It would seem that most of what she had written about her feelings in her journal was indeed influenced by the alcohol. However, this time it wasn't just anyone that was being killed, it was an FIA agent! Once again, Kara found herself wondering what she had gotten herself into. Still, it's not as though she had much choice...

"Kara!" JJ hissed in the darkness, breaking the hacker's chain of thoughts. "You paying attention back there?"

"Yes." she whispered back.

"Good, I thought you'd drifted off. We're at the elevator anyway; do your stuff."

Kara nodded, unsure if JJ could see her in the gloom or not, and took her black rucksack from her back and opened it slowly, minimising the noise made by the zip. She reached inside and pulled out a small handheld device, which resembled a PDA, and a short cable. The cable had a normal adapter at one end, but at the other it had an attachment that resembled a credit card. She plugged one end into the PDA and, using JJ's lighter to see through the darkness, inserted the card end into an ID card slot on the elevator's call panel.

JJ watched with interest as the lemur turned on the PDA and began tapping commands on its small touch-screen, curious as to how the device worked. However, once Kara started working properly, JJ realised he had no chance of keeping up with her. So, he stood back, waiting for the doors in front of him to open, and realised that the whole situation reminded him of something.

Sneaking around in the dark, breaking into rooms... it reminded him of a very important night he had at school. Ever since he left Alba and moved to the United Federation, he had been less than cooperative with authority. And in high school he proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was not one to be pushed around. Being a mobian at an upper-class school 6 years ago meant that he was looked down upon by his teachers and his human classmates; to them he was little more than an animal.

But one day during his second year at high school, one of the humans took things too far. He had punched the hedgehog, goading him into a fight in front of the teachers. He had then stood back and laughed as his cronies beat the hedgehog while the teachers simply watched. His friend Zon, as well as the few other mobians at the school, tried to help him, but they were pulled away by the teachers. JJ was left a bloody mess, but he was not one to let something like that go, despite warnings by both Zon and his other friends.

He broke into the ringleader's house that same night and lit his parents' furniture on fire, before proceeding to the garage and igniting a rag he stuffed into the fuel tank of the father's car. He had watched, laughing, as the car blew up and set the house on fire.

He was arrested soon after, and was taken to prison for the first time. Despite being only 12 years old, he was put in an adult mobian's prison. At that time, mobian and human prisons were separate, but laws had since changed and now humans and mobians served time side by side. He came out unscathed, but hardened, and with a new obsession for violence, especially the kind involving fire. It wasn't the last time he would go to jail for fire related crimes, but in the 6 years that followed he had almost managed to grow out of his pyromaniac ways.

Almost, but not quite.

"Umm... JJ?" Kara whispered, breaking the hedgehog's reminiscing.

"Yeah?" he replied quietly, before he noticed the elevator doors were open in front of him. "Ah... nice work, new girl. Um... how long did that take you anyway?"

"A minute, maybe..." she replied.

"Nice... let's get this over with, shall we?" JJ whispered to her, "I know you don't like being involved in our evil deeds any more than you have to be."

"...Right."

The pair resumed their previous silence and stepped into the elevator. JJ pressed the button for floor 22 and stepped back, before leaning a shoulder casually against the elevator wall and folding his arms.

"Um... JJ?" Kara said quietly once they started moving upwards.

"Yeah?"

"What were you thinking about back there?"

JJ smiled and gazed into space. "The good times, Kara. The old days. Stick around, and one day I might tell you about them."

"That... would be nice?" Kara said uncertainly.

The pair then stood in silence while the steel box they were in hummed its way up to the 22nd floor. When it arrived there, it let out a soft 'ping', and both hedgehog and lemur stepped onto the thick-carpeted landing. There wasn't anyone around, which wasn't surprising; it was after 3 in the morning. All they had to do now was find their target's room and finish the job.

"Alright, let's do this." JJ said decisively.

__________

Elsewhere in the city, Nevio Silvano was having a tough night. He had yesterday found out that one of his most trusted lieutenants, and friends, had died. Silvano had been hit hard, not only from a personal angle, but on the business angle as well. Thorpe's death meant he would be losing 10% of the syndicate's income every day until he appointed a replacement.

It looked as though the death had been accidental, but Silvano didn't believe that for a second. He had known Riley Thorpe for over 10 years, and although he was a regular user, he was far from stupid. He would never have fallen down some stairs while high; he knew better than to try and move around too much while the drugs were working. No, Silvano suspected foul play was involved, and he had called in some favours from the Westopolis police department to find out for sure. Right now, forensics teams were scouring Thorpe's warehouse for anything that could give them a clue as to who was responsible.

The syndicate boss was sitting in a luxurious office on the top floor of his primary base of operations, a sizeable skyscraper situated in the Central Business District, right at the heart of the city. The skyscraper towered above most other buildings around it, but it certainly wasn't the tallest building in the city. No, that title was still held by the nearby Opal Tower. At the top of Silvano's skyscraper, there was a structure that looked as though someone had cut a pyramid in half, turned it upside down, and then stuck it onto the side of the building. Silvano's office was at the top of this structure, and it was easily the biggest room in the building.

Silvano was sitting at his large wooden desk, eager for news of the investigation, when his phone finally rang. He swiped the wireless device up immediately, and walked over to look out of the huge windows behind his desk.

"Yes?" he said, matter-of-factly.

"Mr Silvano?" the caller replied, "I'm heading up the investigation at Mr Thorpe's warehouse, and I believe we've found something."

"Go on."

"We found markings on the door frame of Mr Thorpe's office that suggest the door was kicked open, despite being unlocked. This leads me to believe that someone was trying to intimidate Mr Thorpe."

Silvano nodded his head thoughtfully, despite no-one being able to see him, and asked the investigator to continue.

"Yes sir." The scientist replied. "The other interesting piece of evidence we found almost certainly points to foul play. While going over Mr Thorpe's body, we found a few strands of red fur, as well as a hedgehog's quill which appears to have been shed while standing over the body."

"A red hedgehog?" Silvano said, more talking to himself than the scientist.

"That's right sir."

"Hmm... Is that all you have?"

"Of significance, yes sir."

"Alright, keep looking." Silvano said, and pressed the end call button.

A red hedgehog... Silvano knew of a red hedgehog with the skills to kill a syndicate lieutenant, and make it seem like an accident, but he couldn't remember who it was. He had waited almost a day to find out who was responsible, however, and he could wait a little longer. Silvano decided he would head home and sleep on it, and hopefully something would come back to him in the morning.

And when it did, he would find the hedgehog responsible and crush him.

__________

Back at the hotel, Kara and JJ had reached their target's room. Kara once again took her PDA device from her rucksack and plugged the cable into it. The other end was inserted into the room key socket next to the door, and within seconds, Kara had unlocked it. JJ stepped forward and gently opened the door, took a quick look up and down the corridor, and then crept inside. Once he had entered the room, he signalled to Kara to follow him. She stuffed her PDA back into her rucksack and made her way inside, keeping as quiet as she possibly could. JJ shut the door behind her, and then the pair turned and looked around the room.

It was large, and had what looked to be two smaller rooms leading off of it. Kara would assume one of these was a bedroom, and the other was a bathroom. There were two large sofas in the middle of the room they were standing in, and a glass coffee table was positioned between them. What interested Kara was the laptop sitting on the coffee table. It was her job to hack into it, and determine whether or not the agent had made any digital copies of some stolen documents, while it was JJ's job to eliminate the agent, and find the original documents.

Beside her, JJ crouched low and began making his way to the bedroom where the agent was presumably sleeping. When he reached the door to the room, he turned to Kara and pointed to the laptop. His message was clear: do your job and I'll do mine. Kara nodded and made her way over to the table, and sat down on one of the large sofas. It squeaked loudly as she sank into it and at the door to the bedroom, JJ froze. Kara turned round to look at him and he gave her a wild look that said: what the hell are you doing! Keep it down!

Kara shrugged apologetically and JJ shook his head, before turning and opening the door to the agent's room. He crept inside and disappeared from Kara's view, so she turned and opened the laptop, preparing to work. Once it had turned on and loaded, she did a quick search for any recently added documents, and found many. Without more information, she could do nothing but sit back and wait until JJ had done his part. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out what she knew was going to happen just a few metres behind her.

Inside the bedroom, JJ had crept over to the agent's bed. Antony Isaacs, Jin had said his name was. He was a tall human, from what JJ could see of him, and he had dark skin and a short crop of hair. If he was honest, JJ wished he didn't know the man's name; it made killing slightly more difficult. But he would still do it.

The hedgehog had learned his lesson from the Baseer mess, and so, he looked around for a more silent way of killing Isaacs. The simplest, and perhaps most humane, method of eliminating him was to suffocate him in his sleep. JJ decided on this plan, and reached across the chest of the sleeping man to lift a pillow from the other side of the double bed. It was large and soft, perfect for the task JJ needed it to do. He readied himself, raised the pillow over the sleeping man's head, and then brought it down slowly to cover his face. Long seconds passed, until suddenly Isaacs began struggling and choking, at which point JJ clamped the pillow down over his face, cutting off his air completely.

In the main room, Kara heard Isaacs' spluttering and thrashing and covered her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried desperately to shut out the horrible sounds of death. After what seemed like hours, she took her hands away and opened her eyes, and found JJ standing in front of her, waving a folder full of documents in her face. She reluctantly reached out and took them, and the hedgehog sat down next to her.

"You alright?" he asked her.

"...No." she murmured.

JJ opened his mouth to say something, but he decided against and sat back. Kara opened the folder JJ gave her and checked the title. It read: "Covert Operations Division - Operational History". Kara frowned at this. What was the Covert Operations Division? She assumed it was some kind of government agency, but she had never heard of it. JJ leaned over and glanced at the documents, and then at Kara. He noticed her curiosity and frowned.

"Kara, it doesn't matter what the documents are, it doesn't matter what that agency is, all that matters is that we finish the job. Okay?"

Kara hesitated, and then nodded slowly. Now with the title of the documents, she searched the computer again. This time, she found something tangible. Several documents labelled C.O.D showed up, telling Kara that they needed the laptop.

"You find what you needed?" JJ asked.

"Yes. We need to take this laptop." She said coldly.

"Um... Alright then, let's go." JJ replied, surprised by the lemur's attitude.

The pair stood up and headed for the door to the room, getting ready to exit the hotel without being seen. Their job was done.

__________

Jin was waiting patiently in his living room, watching the television while waiting for news from JJ. Tobias had gone to bed hours ago, and as soon as JJ called and reported in, Jin would join him. He was currently watching the news, and wasn't surprised to see all the major headlines involved Trey Baseer in some way. Business impacts, economic impacts, social impacts... Jin soon tired of the doomsday-style of reporting and changed the channel to watch something else.

He found an old mobian film he liked, "Living the Lie", and settled in to watch it. It was about a mobian fox that fought in the great interracial wars of the 1960s and found himself without a cause once a truce was called. He attempts to integrate himself into human society, but being scorned at every turn, until he finally realises it's not to be and returns home. Years pass, and he later finds out that humans can be accepting under the right conditions. The film ends on a positive note, promoting the message of human-mobian cooperation and friendship, a message Jin always liked to see.

Jin was about halfway into the film when the phone rang. He turned the volume down on the T.V and scooped up the phone, pressing it to his ear.

"JJ?" he said.

"No, Jin. You know who this is."

Jin's eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth, despite no-one being round to see.

"Silvano." He growled into the receiver. "What do you want?"

"Answers. One of my most trusted lieutenants was killed yesterday, and my forensics people tell me it was a red hedgehog. I racked my brain for hours trying to think of a hedgehog that could have done this, until I remembered that you had a red hedgehog on your team. Now talk."

Jin took all of this in quickly, and realised the consequences. What the heck was Zon thinking?! He composed himself immediately, however, and replied.

"There used to be a hedgehog like that on my team, but I fired him months ago." Jin said, without missing a beat. "So if you think I gave the order, then I'm afraid you're wrong. I have no reason to kill one of your lieutenants; I'm in deep enough with you as it is."

"I see..." Silvano replied, unconvinced. "So you're saying the hedgehog acted alone?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

Silvano considered this for a moment, and then said: "I'm going to make you an offer here Jin. You say this hedgehog used to work for you, so if anyone has a chance of finding him, it's you."

"What's your point, Silvano?"

"If you find this hedgehog and bring him to me, alive, then you owe me nothing."

Jin was startled.

"So the debt for Baseer would be clear?"

"Precisely, Jin. Bring him to me, and our quarrel ends. It's the only deal you're going to get, so I suggest you take it."

"I'll consider it, Silvano. Goodbye." Jin said, and hung up.

He sank back into the sofa, considering everything he had just learned. Zon, being the idiot he was, had gone on some kind of revenge quest while the rest of them went to the pub, and he had killed one of Silvano's lieutenants. Silvano would clear their debt if Jin handed Zon over, but that wasn't really an option, so he disregarded it.

However, by saying that Zon wasn't part of the team, Jin had screwed himself over. If any of Silvano's vast army of informants saw Zon anywhere near the other mercs, the syndicate boss would know Jin lied and forget the Baseer debt. He'd come purely for revenge, and he'd kill them all.

The hedgehog had potentially killed the entire team, and he had to pay for it. Jin noticed that he was still holding the phone, so he dialled Zon's number and put the device to his ear. There were going to be serious consequences for the hedgehog, especially once the rest of the team found out what he'd done.

Jin didn't envy him one bit.

* * *

Zon's been rumbled!

Oh noes!


	7. Consequences

Let's see... Kara reminisces, Zon is punished, and I introduce you to one of the other mercs.

Read on...

* * *

Kirah was lounging on one of her large red sofas waiting for Kara to get home, and "Living the Lie" was playing on the television in the corner of the room. The porcupine, despite only knowing Kara for about 2 weeks, had grown attached to the young lemur, and she was worried about her. Tonight was the first job that Kirah hadn't accompanied her on, and Kirah was worried about how she'd get on without her. The young lemur had enough difficulty doing the jobs she was given without having to work alone with JJ, someone she barely knew.

The door to the spacious apartment opened behind the sofa, but Kirah didn't turn round. Kara Tyler entered and shut the door softly behind her, wary in case her friend had gone to bed. There were no lights on in the room save for the glow cast by the television, and it gave everything an almost eerie look.

Kara made her way over to the sofa to look for the remote to the television, but found Kirah there instead, lying still and seemingly fixed on the film. Moving around to the front of the sofa, Kara saw what her friend was actually doing and smiled in the half-light. It would seem that Kirah had tried to stay up and wait for her to come in, but had fallen asleep somewhere along the way. It was understandable, however; it was after 4 in the morning.

Kara decided she'd let her friend sleep, and made her way quietly to her room. Once she had shut the door to her cosy bedroom, she immediately stripped off her dark clothes and changed into her black silken pyjamas, getting ready to just flop into bed and sleep. Before she did though, she headed to the on-suite bathroom and turned on the light, and began rummaging through the medicine cabinet. She was well aware that she would be stricken by nightmares as soon as her head touched the pillow, and she was desperate to prevent them.

After a few minutes of rummaging, she found what she was looking for; a bottle of strong sleeping pills that promised a deep, dreamless sleep. Kara emptied two pills into her hand and then stuffed them in her mouth, washing them down with tap water. She headed for bed before the pills took effect, climbing into the black-quilted double bed and snuggling into the pillows. The pills weren't going to affect her for several minutes though, giving her brain time to do something Kara didn't want it to; reflect.

It was hard to believe she was a mercenary and had helped kill three times now; she'd had a relatively normal start in life. Her father left her mother before she was born; she'd never met him. Her mother was something of an outcast among lemurs, who tended to stick to tight-knit communities, and had taken the young Kara to find a new life in the port city of Eastopolis. Kara attended public school like most others her age, but she got more than a few odd glances both there and in the streets, thanks to the stereotypes associated with her species. As time went on and the stares were replaced with jokes, Kara gradually became more and more withdrawn.

Nevertheless, she excelled in school and found herself being sent to one of Eastopolis' universities at the age of 15, instead of the usual age of 17. She spent two years there, specialising in computer sciences, before she was offered an apprenticeship from the newly established Opal Corporation in Westopolis, which she eagerly accepted. And that's when things started to go downhill for the young lemur.

The sleeping pills took their course and Kara drifted into a dreamless, refreshing sleep.

__________

"By the Gods Zon, what were you thinking?!"

Zon had arrived at Jin and Tobias' house a mere half hour after Jin had called, and had found both Jin and a roused Tobias there to greet him.

"I might be able to tell you if I knew what you were talking about." Zon replied callously.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" Jin exclaimed angrily. "Seriously, killing one of Silvano's closest friends, who also just happens to one of his lieutenants? Just... just what was going through that screwed up mind of yours?"

Zon's ever-present frown deepened significantly and his mouth formed itself into a distinct snarl. How had Jin found out? More importantly, did Silvano know he was involved? He had to find out.

"How did you find out about that?" he asked his boss directly.

"Is that all you can say?" Tobias chimed in. "You've potentially killed us all and you want to know how you were caught? Didn't it cross your mind to at least try and justify yourself?"

"There's no point; what's done is done, and can't be changed. Does Silvano know we're involved?"

"We're not involved." Jin said venomously. "You are. And Silvano knows it was you."

"How?" Zon asked, "I left no evidence that could lead to me."

"Seems you were shedding at the time; you practically left him a card with your damned name on it."

Zon growled in irritation, while Tobias and Jin watched with a mixture of anger and sympathy.

"Vincent, I should boot you out of the mercs and leave you to fend for yourself, but you know I can't do that." Jin said, adopting a slightly softer tone.

"Not sure the others will see it that way." Zon replied quietly.

"I... we both love you like a son Vincent," Jin said, glancing at Tobias, "So we can't just abandon you to your fate, but after this, there's no way we can let you work with us. For a while at least."

Zon said nothing, and didn't even bother to look at either of the two men who had raised him for nearly a decade. He understood why they were doing what they were doing, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"To spare the rest of the team, Jin told Silvano we'd fired you months ago." Tobias said, stating what Zon already suspected. "So if one of his informants evens sees you with the rest of us, we're all dead. And if they spot you, then you're dead. There's nothing any of us can do to stop him, Vincent; I'm sorry."

"So there's only one we can really do." Jin said. "You need to go into hiding before the hunt begins properly. That means tonight, before sunrise."

Zon looked directly at him, surprised.

"...Now? Are you saying I need to go now?" he said, uncharacteristically hesitant.

"...I'm afraid so, and I don't know how long you'll need to stay in hiding." Jin sighed. He walked over to a bookcase against the wall of the room and retrieved a small envelope from one of the shelves, and returned to the hedgehog.

He handed the envelope to Zon and explained: "There's an apartment me and Tobias bought a while ago, just in case something happened. You'll find keys, a garage keycode and an address inside that envelope. I'll send someone round every now and then to bring you whatever you need, but you need to promise me you'll stay hidden there. Stay out of sight."

Zon turned the envelope over in his hands a few times, his face betraying some of the anger he was feeling. It took a minute or so, but he mumbled his promise and Jin nodded, satisfied.

"Alright, now get going." The wolf said.

Without speaking, or even looking at Jin or Tobias, Zon turned and stormed out of the house, shutting the front door hard. A few seconds later, his motorbike could be heard rumbling into life and taking off down the street.

"I would say that didn't go well, but you're better at reading people than I am," Jin said after a minute, "How do you think he took that?"

"I agree with you." Tobias replied bluntly. "But then, he's going to spend at least the next few months cooped up in an apartment, mostly on his own; it's understandable."

"Should suit him fine." Jin said with an unconvincing smile.

One problem had been, hopefully, taken care of, but they still needed to get together the money to pay Silvano. Jin would call their latest clients later in the day and set up a meeting to hand over their documents and Isaacs' laptop, and get paid at the same time. He could only hope that was all their problems accounted for, but he had a bad feeling about the clients. He was unsure why, perhaps because he knew they represented the government on some level, but he was unable to trust them. He didn't think they'd hold up their end of the deal.

But he could hope.

__________

Hope was worthless.

That was the opinion of Agent Byron Kramm as he made his way through the maze of corridors inside the FIA headquarters to his boss' office. He was an agent of 10 years, but recently he had been getting the short end of the stick more and more often; jobs that an average agent could take care of without difficulty. Kramm felt that he deserved better, but he had given up hoping for his opportunity weeks ago, and had decided to make it happen. The director had called him to his office, and if he gave Kramm another duff job, they were going to have some serious words.

He reached the door to the director's office and didn't bother knocking, simply strolling straight through and standing in front of his boss' desk. The director, Eric Wiseman, didn't seem impressed by Kramm's attitude; maybe if the lynx wasn't a mere 4 ft tall, he'd have taken more notice.

"Agent Kramm. Have a seat, please." He said.

Kramm looked at the chair and then sat down, his eyes barely leaving the director's face. He was now facing Wiseman across the desk, and was using his experience to read the director's face, to see what he was thinking. His eyes were calm, his body was relaxed and he had the tiniest hint of a smile... Kramm deduced that he was about to receive good news. Wiseman would only look this relaxed if he had something to say that he thought would please him.

"I assume you've heard about Trey Baseer?" Wiseman asked, knowing the answer.

"Of course I have," Kramm replied, "It's plastered all over every kind of media you can think of."

"Indeed it is. Tell me though; have you heard the news about Antony Isaacs?"

"Isaacs? I barely knew him, but last I heard he'd been working on something big. Why, what's happened?"

"He's dead; smothered to death in his sleep. We think it's a professional job since the only thing missing from his room was his laptop." Wiseman explained, almost seeming apologetic.

"Hmm... sorry to hear that, but why didn't I know this until now?"

"We're keeping it under wraps. The less people know about it, the less people there are who can leak it to the press. And that's the last thing we need."

"And yet you're telling me..." Kramm said, waiting for Wiseman to tell him why, though he suspected he knew.

"I'm sending you to investigate Isaacs' death. You'll have a team at your disposal, but I know you like to work alone so they'll be on standby. Isaacs was staying at the Imperius Hotel in Westopolis, I'd guess that'd be your first stop."

"Look, I don't want to mess up this opportunity, but I need to ask; why are you giving me a decent job all of a sudden?"

"I... don't follow." Wiseman answered sincerely.

"I've been sitting around and doing the occasional rookie job for months now, and I was starting to get sick of it. And out of the blue you give me this?"

"Agent, everyone has to do grunt work every now and again. I can't just assign the same agents to every major operation that comes up. Besides, your real strengths lie with tracking and investigation, and I haven't had anything that you were best suited for in a while. But you're suited to this, so I'm giving it to you."

"I see." Kramm replied. "Thanks for the job then. Is there anything else, or should I get started?"

"There is actually. Isaacs is your first priority, but while you're there, I want you to find out if there's a connection between his death and Baseer's."

"Do we have any reason to think there is?"

"Not really, but my superiors want the public to think we're at least making an effort on the Baseer front." Wiseman replied with a sly grin.

"Right...find who killed Isaacs and bring them in, and try to find who killed Baseer. Is that all this time?"

"You seem to be in a hurry, agent." Wiseman replied.

"I am. I'd like to start as soon as possible, but I need to go and see my family first to let them know I'll be going to Westopolis for a while. That and my daughter's playing in a concert today."

"Ah, of course. All right, I won't keep you Kramm, good hunting."

"Thanks. I'll call as soon as I have something." Kramm replied, and stood up from the chair. He wasted no time in leaving the room; he had a wife and daughter to see.

Wiseman sat back in his chair, straightening his tie with satisfaction. He had pulled off that little facade quite nicely, and Kramm didn't even suspect that Wiseman had been playing him for months. He respected Kramm, but the lynx had to be kept eager or else he'd get sloppy, so Wiseman had kept him off the proper jobs for a while to get him riled up, so that when he needed him, he'd be at peak condition. And it had worked.

Kramm would hunt down those responsible, and do whatever was necessary to bring them in.

__________

Zack Hunter felt something on his side, shaking him, but he ignored it and tried to stay asleep. The thing persisted, however, and Zack was forced groggily into consciousness. He opened his eyes and quickly regretted it; sunlight was streaming through a set of blinds in front of him straight into his face. The thing that had been shaking him backed off as he sat up, and he buried his face in his hands tiredly. His head was pounding like a set of drums being played by someone with a violent arm twitch. He thought he could hear someone speaking to him, but everything was a bit hazy so he tried to wave the noise away.

His mind cleared up a little, and the porcupine realised he didn't have a clue where he was. He thought back to the previous night. There wasn't much of it he could remember. Once he and Kara had finished scouting out the hotel, he had gone to McGrady's. After that, things became a bit fuzzy, but he did remember talking to a girl at the bar...

"Oh Gods..." he murmured into his hands. He slowly turned his head and saw a very pretty mobian cat looking down at him, wearing nothing but her underwear.

"Ah! The beast awakens!" She exclaimed.

"Um... yeah." Zack replied uneasily. "So... who would you be?"

A few minutes later Zack found himself in the close of an apartment building, holding his clothes in his hands, and being stared down by a very angry cat holding a waffle iron. He quickly pulled on his jeans and boots, deciding he could put his top on as he legged it. And he did. Sharply.

Another few minutes later and he was standing in a busy street in what he guessed to be a central part of Westopolis, surrounded by business people giving him weird looks. He shrugged them off, picked a direction and started walking, pulling his t-shirt on as he went. About 20 minutes later, he was standing alone in an alleyway in front of a car that wasn't currently in use. Zack therefore considered it fair game and delivered a kick to one of its windows, his foot protected by the thick leather of his boot.

No alarms. That didn't surprise him, the car looked fairly old. He pulled open the door and sat down, began fishing around for the keys and, lo and behold, found them cleverly stashed in the glove box. Some people were just too naive. You had to be careful; you could never know when a confused porcupine fresh from being chased by a waffle-iron wielding cat could come along. But along he had come, and off he drove.

He pulled out into a side street and started making his way towards a main road, eager to get back to a part of the city he actually knew. He turned on the car's radio and was delighted to hear that his favourite band, "Fear of the Dark", was on all day on a special radio show. He pulled onto one of the city's main roads, which circled the metropolis, and started looking for an exit that would take him home. He nearly crashed several times thanks to excessive headbanging.

As he overtook someone who was travelling on the speed limit, therefore too slow by Zack's standards, the porcupine's phone began rumbling in his pocket. He fished it out, grateful that he still had it, and accepted the call.

"Zack, you busy?" Jin asked from the other end of the line.

"...Not anymore, why?" Zack replied.

Jin chuckled and said: "Where'd you wake up this time? Next to a rather butch yak, maybe?"

"Har-de-har. I'll have you know she looked like a very nice cat... from what I saw of her."

"She chase you out?"

"Yep. With a waffle-iron."

Jin forgot chuckling and broke into all-out laugher.

"Oh..." he said once he'd composed himself, "You have no idea how funny that image was in my head... ah, good stuff."

"Yeah, yeah," Zack sighed, "So what were you calling about?"

"Right. Yes. I want you to head over to Simm's and pick up three rifles. D'you have enough money on you for them?"

"Lemme check... nope." Zack replied, discovering he had his wallet, but the damned cat had stolen all his money. He'd go back and get it, but frankly, he couldn't remember where the house was.

"Alright... I'm sure Simm will just let us owe him, he's a good guy."

"That he is, Jin. What kinds of rifles do you want, and come to think of it, why?"

"Tobias and I are meeting our last clients out at the old quarry, but I don't trust them. I want you, Kirah and JJ there to watch our backs. You're the sniper, Zack, so I trust you to pick the best guns for the job."

"Alright, I'll be by with them later... wait a minute." Zack replied, just realising something. "How come Zon's not coming? He knows how to handle a rifle, heck, I taught him a few months back."

"He's... staying to watch Kara."Jin replied.

"Really? One: you sound uncertain, and two: that's maybe the worst idea I've ever heard. Mr antisocial himself looking after little miss morals? It wouldn't work. What's really going on?"

"...I'll tell you when you get here. But basically, Zon won't be working with us for a while."

Zack was smart enough to realise not to press the subject, told Jin he'd be over with the guns by 4pm, and hung up. The car's clock told him it was currently 2pm. Plenty of time to drop by Simm's, have a chat and get some rifles.

But he couldn't help wondering about Zon. Just what had the hedgehog done?

* * *

I have to admit, Zack wasn't that important a character when I first thought him up, but I really liked writing for him. I also think it might be my best bit of writing so far.

Do you?

Anyway, Now the FIA (Federal Investigative Agency, in case you missed it in the other chapter) is after our mercenaries as well as Silvano, and Zon's getting hunted!

Very slight tension rise?

Not really.

...

Onward!


	8. Art of the Deal

Next chaper, and it's the longest one yet.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

The air was cold as it swirled through the clumsily strewn rocks of the old quarry, and the light drizzle certainly didn't help warm things up. The old quarry had been in use for over 30 years; in fact, materials mined from it were once used to create weapons for use in the great interracial wars, but it had been shut down thanks to overwhelming health and safety complaints. It lay a few miles to the west of Westopolis, but the city's governors hadn't bothered to order it's decommission. They saw it as a waste of time and money to remove the quarry to reclaim the now useless land beneath.

However, the quarry was now the perfect place for discreet business, and that's precisely how it was being used today. Jin and Tobias were waiting patiently in their, rather comfortable, black sedan for the collectors to show up with their money, so that the exchange could be made and everyone could go home happy. Jin didn't see that happening, however, but he was calming himself by watching the car's built in television. There was no point in waiting outside in the cold, wet dreariness when he could be sitting in the lovely, warm car.

He felt sorry for the three mercenaries outside though. They would be chilled to the bone by now, and probably all hated him. He had posted JJ, Zack and Kirah around the meeting area on top of the high mounds of rocks, and told Zack to get them all in positions with the best view of the area. Jin had absolutely no idea where any of them were, but he trusted each of them with his life, so that wasn't a problem. All of a sudden on the small, dashboard-mounted television there was an awkward moment between two characters. Jin and Tobias seemed to think the same thing at this point, because they both turned to each other at the same time and said:

"How d'you think Kara's getting on with Zon?"

They both chuckled and settled back into watching the drama. Jin hadn't trusted Silvano enough to leave Kara on her own, and there was no way he was bringing her to the meet. So, he had put her in another car with Zon's current apartment programmed into the satellite navigation device and sent her on her way. He could only hope the two less-than-social colleagues could play nice until this deal was over with. But who could know? The pair may even hit it off and become friends.

What was he thinking?

All of a sudden, Tobias tapped the wolf on the shoulder and pointed straight ahead. It would seem that their paymasters had arrived. A black car, equally as comfortable-looking as their own, was slowing to a halt several metres in front of the two mercenaries, two others like it following closely. Jin quickly sent a text to his backup, warning them to be ready for anything. Once that was done, he reached around to the back seat and handed Tobias the rucksack containing both Isaacs' laptop and the C.O.D's lost documents. He and the rest of the team had taken to calling the mysterious organisation the C.O.D, after reading the title of the documents, as it meant they didn't have to say "Covert Operations Division" every time they wanted to discuss their clients. He could only assume that these collectors represented the C.O.D, but he couldn't be absolutely sure. They could just be thieves looking for a big score for all he knew.

The dual leaders of the mercs nodded to one another and wordlessly exited the car, striding round to the bonnet and waiting for the collectors to exit their vehicle and get the handover started.

This should be interesting.

__________

Zon was bored out of his skull. He had been faithfully sitting in Jin's apartment for little over a day, but he yearned to be out working. He knew that something was happening today, and he desperately wanted to be a part of it. Kara, who was curled up in a large chair to his left, could almost sense the hedgehog's frustration, and was more than a little wary of being around him. After all, what did she really know about him? Only what she had been told, and what she had been told didn't exactly fill her with confidence. She couldn't help thinking back to the conversation she'd had with Jin before he sent her to the apartment.

"_I know it's a bit awkward," the wolf was saying, "But I really don't want to leave you on your own anywhere that Silvano could find you."_

"_I understand Jin... it's just... it feels like you're treating me like a child." Kara said._

"_I suppose I am, in a way. I apologise." Jin replied. "But this is no place for a child, and we both know it. Silvano will use anything and everything he can to get his hands on Zon, and if he thinks you can point him in the right direction... Well, I'll leave it to your imagination."_

_Kara found herself exercising a well-used cliché at that point; she gulped._

"_Look, I know you're scared, but that's not the whole issue here, is it?" Jin said knowingly. When Kara didn't answer, he continued, "You're not exactly a sociable person, are you? It was the same when I told you you'd be working alone with JJ; you seemed a bit freaked out then too."_

"_I... yes, you're right. I get a bit... anxious when I have to meet new people. I can never seem to think of anything to say, and I always end up in some awkward silence." Kara replied._

"_Well, I wouldn't worry about that with Zon; he's less sociable than anyone I've ever met, including you. At the very worst, he'll act a bit rude, and at best, you'll get a little conversation out of him."_

_Kara didn't exactly find herself reassured._

_Jin picked up on this immediately, and said, "Look, he's a bit rough around the edges, sure. And he can be a bit violent. But I've known Zon for nearly a decade, and he's... nicer once you get to know him."_

"_But I won't know what to say to him..." Kara murmured._

"_Just make it up as you go, that's all conversations really are," Jin advised. "For example... if he's watching TV, you could ask him what he thinks about what's on. You might not get a straight answer, but at least you'll have said something."_

"_I suppose..."_

Thinking back on Jin's advice, Kara couldn't help but wonder if now was the right time to try out what he'd said. Certainly, the widescreen TV was on, but it was the news and Zon didn't seem especially interested in it. In fact, he was looking out of the living room's large windows with an almost... wistful look, as though he was desperate to be outside in the drizzly, horrible weather. That was understandable though, Kara surmised; Jin had explained the situation to her and she knew he'd be trapped in this apartment for some time.

She looked again at the news. Some report about Vice-President Burrows had just ended, and the reporters were moving onto another story.

"In other news, the serial killer known only as 'Slade' is believed to have been sighted in the downtown area of Central City today." The reported said, her pretty face seeming completely uninterested in what she was saying. "Local and federal authorities are currently investigating the claims, and have told this station that they are confident they will capture the notorious killer by the end of the week."

"So... um..." Kara began uncertainly. It was time to test out Jin's advice, and see just what kind of person Zon was. "Do you think they'll catch that 'Slade' guy?"

"Not if he's as good as they all make him out to be." Zon replied, not taking his gaze away from the window.

"Oh. Um... how many people is it they think he's killed now?"

"Don't know. About thirteen, maybe."

Kara sat back in her seat, finding that she had run out of things to say. This is what always seemed to happen to her; she'd start a conversation, get out a few sentences, and then she'd go dry. She knew there were an infinite number of things she could talk about, but she didn't have the confidence to do so. Her childhood could be thanked for that. Although, it didn't help that Zon' mind was on other things. He seemed to regard her presence there as a forced duty to Jin; like someone forced to watch their baby cousin while it's parents go out for the night.

Unbeknownst to Kara, Zon felt similarly to her. He also had people issues, and for similar reasons, though neither of them knew it. However, he was also a very curious person, and ever since the lemur had joined the mercs he had been wondering just what had driven her to them. He personally only worked as a mercenary for three reasons: his obligation to Jin and Tobias, the money, and the fact that it provided him an outlet for his rage. He decided he would find out just what Kara was doing with the mercs; if nothing else, a little conversation might relieve his boredom.

"Why did you join the mercs?" he asked suddenly, turning to look at her.

"I'm sorry?" Kara replied, caught off-guard.

"You heard me. What were you doing before you came to work for us?"

"I... why do you want to know?"

"I'm curious. Are you going to tell me or not?"

Kara thought back to Jin's advice. "_Just make it up as you go"_ he had said. Zon's question had come at her from nowhere, but she supposed if she told him then she'd technically be having a conversation. Once he learned a bit about her, maybe she could learn something about him.

"Well... okay then. I... uh... I was working for the Opal Corporation as a sort of digital security guard. It was my job to find any viruses or intruders in the system and get rid of them."

Zon said nothing, but one of his eyebrows rose as if to say _"Impressive."_

"I got a bit greedy though... and I kind of started hacking bank accounts and stealing company profits. Just small amounts to start with; a hundred or two hundred extra rings a month... But because I was getting away with that, I started taking more."

"And you got caught." Zon said; his face impassive. Kara had been expecting some kind of judgemental comment about stealing from the company, but he didn't offer any, just like Jin and Tobias hadn't when they interviewed her. Although, she was sure the hedgehog had done far worse things than steal in his time. He probably thought nothing of stealing, so he was hardly likely to judge her for doing so.

"I... yes, I got caught. I lost my job and was taken to court, but I luckily managed to make bail, and ran."

"You ran? You don't seem like the type." Zon said bluntly.

"I didn't think I was, but they were going to put me in prison for years, and I couldn't face that. So I... ran. I don't know how, but I ended up in McGrady's, and that's how I met Jin and Tobias. They noticed me on my own and started talking to me. And... And here I am."

"Just like that?" Zon asked suspiciously.

Kara was caught off guard, again. "I'm... not sure I follow."

"Well, as I said, you don't seem like the type to run from the police, and the biggest crime you'd committed before joining us was theft; cyber-theft at that. And yet, as soon as the threat of jail comes along, you're perfectly willing to run away while on bail, strike a deal with two strangers in a seedy bar and join a team of mercenaries? No, something isn't quite right there. There's something you're keeping to yourself."

"I could have gone to prison!" Kara exclaimed indignantly. "Do you have any idea how long someone like me would have lasted in there? Believe me, the only reason I'm working for you people is because I've got nowhere else to go. Do you really think I'm proud to have been an accessory to murder three times over?"

"It would seem not. But still, something doesn't quite add up. You seem sincere enough, but there's still something..." Zon said thoughtfully. "I suppose it doesn't really matter though. If If your reasons were good enough for Jin, then they're good enough for me."

And with that, Zon turned away and started staring out of the window again. Kara calmed herself, surprised by her own outburst, and settled back into the chair to watch the news. Now they were talking about a convicted rapist called Thomas Sleine being on the loose in Station Square, and the unsuccessful attempts to catch him. She wondered if there was ever any good news in the world.

As time dragged on, she found her thoughts drifting back to Jin and the others. Across from her, Zon was thinking the same thoughts. They were both wondering if the rest of the team was okay, and if the collectors would keep their word.

__________

Jin and Tobias were wondering the same thing. The collectors were standing a mere 5 feet in front of the pair, but Jin still found he was unable to trust them. There were six of them; all male, all wearing black suits, and all wearing mirrored sunglasses. The epitome of government agent clichés stood before him, but Jin wasn't in the mood to laugh. He just wanted to get this exchange over with and go home without any problems, but he had a nasty feeling that wasn't going to happen. Nevertheless, he strode across the no-man's land between his car and the cars of the collectors, laptop and documents in hand.

"I assume those are the agreed items?" one of the well-dressed collectors said, stepping out to meet Jin. He held a steel briefcase in his right hand as he strode forward, and Jin couldn't help noticing a poorly concealed pistol hanging from a holster under his armpit.

"Of course. And I assume that's the payment?" Jin asked; stopping and motioning towards the briefcase.

"Yes. Let's keep this simple."

Jin nodded and held out the rucksack items he carried, while simultaneously holding out his other hand to take the briefcase. The collector did the same, and a tense exchange took place. Now with the money, Jin no longer had a reason to speak with the man and turned away, heading back to the car.

It wasn't until he saw Tobias' face that he knew something was wrong.

The thorny lizard's face went from relief to fear in less than a second, and Jin took that as his cue to run. He broke into an all-out sprint as a loud gunshot echoed from behind him and joined Tobias in diving behind the car, bullets flying past his ear as he ran. Bullets slammed into the car as he ran around the vehicle and the sound of windows and mirrors smashing echoed throughout the quarry. Unfortunately, Tobias didn't react fast enough in ducking out of sight, and a bullet sliced its way into his tail. He cried out as he dropped into cover behind the car, and curled his long tail towards him to inspect the damage. Another bullet crashed into the gravel near Jin's foot as he dropped to a low crouch at the rear of the vehicle, and he could hear the collectors calling instructions to each other as they advanced to finish the job.

"Tobias!" he cried out, seeing his partner clutching his spiny tail. "How bad is it?"

"I'll be fine." The lizard grunted. "Seems my scales are tougher than I thought; the bullet hasn't gone all the way through. I think it's lodged in the wound."

"How bad does it hurt?"

"Imagine stubbing your toe, and multiply that by ten."

Jin grimaced as more bullets impacted the car and ground all around them. Tobias was hurt, maybe badly if he was lying, the collectors had gone back on the deal, and even if they got away from this they'd probably have a government agency after them. It would seem that the fears he had about this meeting were completely justified.

It was just as well, then, that Jin had come prepared.

"Spread out!" the lead collector shouted to his associates. "The commander ordered us not let them leave here alive!"

The six men separated and began to advance on the black sedan. The car had more than a few bullet holes in it thanks to their initial assault. There was nowhere for the two mobians to run to; the leader knew this and thought he had everything under control. And then, at the peak of his confidence, a large calibre bullet cracked his skull open like it was an egg.

"What the heck?!" one of the other men screamed as he saw his leader collapse, before meeting the same fate. The other men frantically tried to take cover amongst the rocks, but no avail; their attackers were all around them. A few well-placed shots later and there were only two men left, who started desperately taking pot shots at the steep mounds of rocks after working out that that's where their assailants were. Surprisingly, they managed to pin down two of the mercenaries, but unfortunately Zack stood atop the hill they had their backs to. He took down one of them while Jin stood up from behind his car, pulling a pistol from his jacket as he rose, and shot the final man three times, ending the conflict.

With all the collectors dead, the mercenaries emerged from their hiding places and had soon converged in the centre of the bloodbath, JJ arriving in a miniature rockslide as he tried to slide down the mound he was on. The three snipers, JJ, Zack and Kirah, had their rifles slung across their backs and Jin was busy fussing over Tobias as he holstered his pistol back beneath his suit jacket. The lizard pushed him off and Jin turned to his employees.

"Nice work guys, we definitely owe you." Jin said with a bleak grin.

"T'was me pleasure Jin," JJ replied, attempting an Eirish accent, "Anything for the boss... hey, are you alright Tobias?"

"I'll be fine." Tobias grumbled, irritated now that the attention was on him. He was clearly still in pain, but he knew nothing could be done until they got home where there were medical supplies. Besides, business came first, as far as he was concerned.

"So... what do we do now?" Kirah asked, trying to draw the gazes from Tobias, for which he gave her a small, appreciative nod.

"Well, first I check the money," Jin said while opening the steel briefcase. It was by sheer concentration that he hadn't dropped it when the attack started. "And then we... oh damn it!"

"What?" Zack asked.

"I assume they didn't even bother to bring the money then?" Tobias said; his pained expression fading somewhat.

Jin shook his head and punted the briefcase into a heap of gravel several metres away. He growled for a few seconds, then collected himself and walked over to the corpse of the collectors' leader. He reached down and scooped up the C.O.D's documents, which had fallen out of the rucksack. Jin presumed that the man had been checking them when the fight started. He went to pick up the laptop as well before discovering one of the snipers' bullets had gone straight through it. It would be useless to take it now. He rose without it, realised he needed something else and crouched back down, reaching inside the collector's jacket and fishing around. A few seconds later he rose and strode back to his team, documents and a mobile phone in hand.

"What do we do with those?" Kirah asked.

"We see if we can still make a bit of money out of this, that's what we do." Jin said irritably, handing the documents to Zack and focusing his attention on the sleek mobile phone he had taken from the collector's corpse. He scrolled his way through the device's contact list while the others watched, until he found an entry simply marked 'Commander'. Thinking back to the collector's shouting, Jin decided this was the person he needed to speak to and dialled the number. He pressed the device to his ear and within a few seconds, a female voice answered from the other end of the line.

"Agent Rask? What do you have to report?" the woman asked in a deadpan voice.

"Your man's dead, and so's the rest of his team. Are you the one in charge?" Jin replied.

The line went silent for a few seconds before another voice answered. It was a man's voice, and it was clearly that of a leader; deep and dripping with authority.

"I assume you are one of the mercenaries?" the man asked.

"That's right. It seems some mix-up on your end made your guys think they were supposed to kill us, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with the orders you gave them, did it?"

"Of course not." The man, who Jin presumed to be the Commander, answered. "I presume you wish to set up another meeting?"

"Yeah, but on my terms this time; I'll call you with the details later. Right now I need to have a bit of stress relief. I'm sure you know the feeling."

"Indeed. Keep the phone you're using; only registered devices are permitted to call this number. I await your call, Jin."

And with that the Commander hung up, leaving Jin wondering how he had known his name. If he really was government he'd probably have had his intelligence agents compile reports about various mercenary groups, and done research on each team, before settling on theirs. Knowing that he and his team may have been spied on unsettled him.

"So, what's happening now?" Tobias asked through clenched teeth.

"I'm setting up another meet, and on our terms. I'll be damned if I'm not getting any money out of this."

"What? They betrayed us once and you think we can trust them a second time?" JJ asked incredulously.

"I've never trusted these people, and that hasn't changed. Now come on, let's get out of here." Jin replied, glancing at Tobias' tail anxiously.

Jin turned and walked to his, now bullet-riddled car, with Tobias at his side, and the other mercenaries followed. The wolf had meant what he had told his team; he'd be damned if he didn't get any money out of this mess. He had enough problems to deal with without adding an angry government agency to the list.

__________

The clock beside him showed the time to be not long after midnight. Jin was sitting in bed, propped up by a pillow, with Tobias sleeping soundly next to him. The thorny lizard's tail hadn't been as badly wounded as he thought, but it was still causing him some pain. After the fire fight with the C.O.D operatives, Jin and the others had retreated to the same apartment that Zon was staying in, due to the fact that Jin suspected the C.O.D had intelligence on each of them. They probably knew where each member of the mercenaries lived, and the cunning wolf wasn't about to risk being killed in the middle of the night by some special-ops team.

He and Tobias were using one of the two bedrooms of the apartment, which was large but not as big as each of the teams' usual abodes. The two girls were sleeping in the only other bedroom, while Zon, JJ and Zack were sprawled around the living room, either on mattresses or the sofas. The rest of the team hadn't exactly been friendly towards Zon when they arrived, all knowing the situation with Silvano, but there hadn't been any real hostilities.

Yet.

They had tended to Tobias' wound on arrival, and had successfully removed the bullet from the flesh of his tail. It was lucky that his scales were like biological armour; if they weren't so tough, the bullet would have carved a clean hole straight through the tail, leaving a permanent injury. Zack had been the one to perform the actual removal and medical work; basic field medicine was merely one of the fields he been trained in while he was a soldier for G.U.N, and it was one of the most useful aspects of his training.

Thinking about it now, Jin suddenly realised just what an odd bunch his team really was. Zack was an ex-soldier for G.U.N, Kirah was an overly-qualified petty thief, Kara was a security executive turned fugitive, Tobias was an average but cunning management expert, and Zon and JJ... well, they had been normal kids once. A long time ago, certainly, but it wasn't really their own fault that they had ended up the way they did.

Jin thought about this for a few minutes, and then remembered the reason he was still awake. He looked down at the folder of documents he held in his hands, the same documents that he had almost been killed for earlier that very day, and pulled the wad of papers from the brown folder. The front page read: "Covert Operations Division - Operational History." Jin could only assume, therefore, that these documents detailed all of the C.O.D's activities since its inception, which a small date on the cover noted as 14/5/1990; the same year that the mobian-human interracial wars of the United Federation had come to an end.

Jin planned to find out exactly what the C.O.D were trying to hide within these documents; presumably they had dirty secrets, which would be why Isaacs had sought them out and stolen them. Jin didn't know if that was how the FIA agent had acquired the documents, but it was a reasonable assumption. Whatever the case, Jin wanted to know exactly why he'd been betrayed, so he had some leverage against the organisation in case they tried anything else.

He flipped open the pages of secrets, and began reading.

* * *

What will Jin find inside those documents? What is the C.O.D? What exactly is Kara hiding from the others?

And other such dramatic questions.

By the way, I didn't intend to make most of this chapter seem like it's from Jin's perspective... it just sort of came out that way.

Weird.


	9. Enemies on all Sides

It had been two days since Agent Kramm had been given the assignment of investigating Antony Isaacs' murder. Since then he had left his home in Central City and travelled to Westopolis to visit the scene of the crime, but when he arrived he had found exactly what he had been expecting; a professional hit, very little evidence, and only a laptop missing. However, he had just gotten word that something interesting had happened in a quarry not far from the city. He had considered calling his boss, Wiseman, for permission to go and check things out, but decided against it and went without clearance. Right now he was driving along the main road out of the great city, heading west towards the sea. It wasn't long until he came across the cut-off road leading to the quarry, and he swerved into it, slowing slightly so as not to crash on the narrow road.

It was at least ten minutes before he arrived at the quarry itself, haven driven in the relative darkness of the evening looking for it. He wasn't surprised to see blue and red lights shining in the entrance to the murder scene, and was even less surprised to see masses of yellow tape and forensic scientists sprawled throughout the area. Kramm pulled his expensive government-issue car up at the previously forgotten front gates, and when he exited the car he was immediately swamped by members of the local P.D.

"Sir, I'm afraid you'll have to turn around and go back where you came from; this is a crime scene."

Kramm rolled his eyes and drew his FIA badge from the inside of his jacket. "Really? I'd never have guessed..." he said sarcastically as he flashed the badge.

The surrounding officers immediately parted to let him through, and he strolled past them, ducked under the tape, and entered the quarry. Inside, he didn't have far to walk before he came across the murder scene. It was down a small hill inside the quarry, and behind a few large piles of rocks. The bodies, of which there were six, were strewn across the gravelly ground and covered in white sheets. It would seem that they hadn't been discovered very long ago; if they had, the bodies would already have been taken to a morgue to have further tests carried out on them.

After more flashing of his badge, he had free reign of the crime scene; the department chiefs had been clear when they realised that an FIA agent was present. He was to be allowed to do his job unhindered. But there was one officer present, a detective to be precise, who wasn't one to worry about what her superiors wanted. She was crouched over one of the bodies, one hand lifting the white sheet covering it when she looked up and saw Kramm. The lynx had light brown, spotted fur and a fuzzy white muzzle, but he looked far from cute. His black suit and contrasting white shirt, the unofficial yet official uniform of FIA agents, gave him a look of authority that caused other officers to slink away when he approached.

Detective Kurtis, however, was not one of these officers. She replaced the sheet over the body and walked over to the federal agent, curious as to why he was here, and how he had found out about the crime so quickly. Kramm, who had also been inspecting a corpse and taking note of the strangely large bullet hole in its head, noticed the female detective approaching and stood up to greet her. She was wearing a dark pinstriped black suit and a lavender coloured top, and her hands were clad in black leather gloves, like his own, to avoid tampering with the scene. She had jet-black hair and extremely dark coloured eyes, possibly a black-brown, which seemed only to highlight the seriousness of her face.

"Can I help you?" he asked when he saw the stern look on her pale features.

"You can, actually." She replied coldly. "You could start by telling me what you're doing here."

"I'd say that was fairly obvious. Next question."

"Hmph. Alright, how did your bosses find out about this so soon? You're based in Central City, right? So you'd have had to have known about this fairly early to get here so fast." She said accusingly.

"I found out the same time you did, but I was already in the city. That's how I got here so fast."

"I see. And why were you in the city in the first place, and not lauding it up with your government friends?"

This woman had guts, Kramm realised. Not only was she disobeying her superiors, but she was deliberately trying to provoke a federal agent at the same time. He had to admire her audacity.

"It's none of your business. Now do you have anything useful to ask me, or can I get back to doing my job?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer he crouched back down to the body.

"No more questions, fed. But I want to make this perfectly clear: this is my case, and I'm not going to let you steal it from under me. I don't know why you're in the city, but then I don't really care. Just stay out of my way."

Again, Kramm inwardly congratulated this woman on her guts. But if she honestly thought he was going to cower under her like he was sure many of her colleagues did then she must had serious mental problems.

"Yeah, I'll make sure to do that." He replied sarcastically. "Now you go and do your job, and leave me to find out who did this."

"I'll be the one finding them, not government trash like you." Kurtis replied, the venom dripping from her voice.

Kramm closed his eyes and smiled, before standing up and looking Kurtis directly in the eyes. Despite her apparent toughness, it seemed Kurtis wasn't quite as stolid as she made herself out to be; after a few seconds she began to react to the lynx's piercing gaze. It was a very subtle reaction, the odd eye twitch, increased blinking and the like, but these were things that Kramm had been trained to recognise. Kurtis remained in her losing stare-out with Kramm for several minutes, before she grunted and walked off. Kramm watched her go, and then crouched back down to the body. He always had been good at making friends.

He looked around and, by chance, his eye caught a shining object in a pile of stones a few feet away. Kramm stood up and walked over to it. He reached down and pulled the object out of the gravel, discovering it to be a steel briefcase. If this crime scene was a professional job like the Isaacs scene, then this case may have been used to carry money. But money for what? To kill these sharply dressed men? He doubted that. It was more likely that the dead men were delivering this case to someone, and the exchange had gone horribly wrong. Suddenly, a thought flashed through Kramm's mind. It was a long shot, but what if this briefcase had contained payment for the Isaacs hit? That might mean that the laptop stolen from Isaacs' apartment would have been given to these "collectors".

He stood up and looked around again, his eyes soon settling on a small black rucksack. It was almost hidden behind a pile of rocks, but Kramm's sharply trained eyes picked it out from the grey of the stone without difficulty. He left the briefcase behind and strode over the rucksack, bending down to examine it when he reached it. He picked the bag up gingerly, and without warning, a laptop slid out of the open top. It would seem he had been right. He picked the machine up and turned it over in his hands, finding a large bullet hole almost directly on the centre of it. That would make it slightly more difficult to prove that the device was what he suspected it to be.

Nonetheless, it would seem that his visit to the quarry had been worthwhile after all. Now he just needed to find out for sure if this laptop was what he thought it was, whether or not these dead men were what he suspected them to be, and who had killed them. When he found that out, he might just find whoever killed Isaacs.

Things were starting to get interesting.

__________

"What the heck were you playing at, you complete tool?!"

Zon found himself pinned against a wall with Zack's well-trained forearm rigid against his windpipe. It would seem that the porcupine had been too concerned about Tobias the previous day to act against Zon, but now that Tobias was fine, he was venting his frustrations. And he wasn't the only one.

"Kick his ass Zack!" called Kirah from the other side of the room. She too was angry at his actions in killing Riley Thorpe and placing them all in even more danger. Kara was watching everything from the door to her and Kirah's room, a little way down a short hall off of the living room, where the fight was taking place. JJ was watching from next to Kirah, mixed feelings running through his mind. On one hand, Zon was his oldest and most trusted friend, but on the other hand, the crimson hedgehog absolutely deserved the beating he would soon get. Killing Silvano's most trusted lieutenant was something that even he wouldn't do.

"Get your hands off me." Zon grunted, pushing Zack's arm off enough to dart to the side and escape its choking grip. The force that the ex-soldier had been putting into his arm sent him into the wall he had pushing Zon against seconds before, sending a shooting pain up his arm as he impacted. When he turned, Zon was already on the other side of the room, knowing full well he didn't have much chance against the porcupine in a fair fight. Kirah was still shouting obscenities at the hedgehog, and was about to get involved when JJ grabbed her arm.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" she asked, whirling to face him.

"Keeping things fair." He replied matter-of-factly. "Because if you get involved, then I do too, and then things really get ugly. Know what I mean?" He flicked open the lighter he held in his other hand and held the flame up, punctuating his point. Kirah considered things for a moment before shaking herself free of JJ's grip and stepping back, sighing as she did so.

Back in the fight, Zack started advancing towards Zon with violence in his ocean-blue eyes. As he got closer he moved onto the balls of his feet, preparing to lunge at the hedgehog before he could use his quickness to escape. Zon noticed this almost immediately and followed suit in shifting his balance, ready to counter Zack's attack. Thus, when the ex-soldier lunged, Zon was perfectly placed to duck under and to the side of his outstretched arms and drive his knee hard into Zack's muscled stomach. The force of the knee, combined with Zack's own momentum, severely winded the porcupine, doubling him over and giving Zon the opportunity to land a hard twisting elbow on the back of his opponent's head. Zack fell to the ground, dazed, and within seconds Zon had one knee on his back and had his arms locked around his throat and head, ready to snap his neck at a moment's notice.

"Calm down..." Zon whispered into the ear of his attacker.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Kirah screamed, running too swiftly for JJ to stop her and delivering a hard kick to the side of Zon's head before he could react. He collapsed to the floor, hard, his eyes glazed and his face expressionless. Kirah was immediately kneeling on his arms, stopping him from defending himself, and was laying into his face with blow after powerful blow. JJ vaulted over one of the sofas to reach her faster and grabbed her arms, pulling her to her feet and throwing her onto the sofa he'd just jumped over.

"He was about to kill Zack, the psycho!" Kirah screamed at him, her finger thrust towards the bloodied hedgehog lying on the floor. "I swear JJ, I swear by the Gods themselves, that if you don't get out my way I'll knock you flat!"

JJ grinned, despite the chaos surrounding him. He had sparred with Kirah on more than one occasion, and despite putting up a good fight, he'd always proven himself to be superior. Kirah knew this full well, but she was running on nothing but adrenalin and rage at the moment. Still, that would only make the fight all the more interesting.

"All right Kirah, come ahead." JJ said, grinning like a lunatic. Kirah launched herself off the sofa and ploughed into him, but he had already shifted himself so that when they impacted, he used her own momentum against her and spun around, throwing her into the wall behind him. He walked over to continue the fight, but he was interrupted by the most authoritative shout he'd ever heard.

"All of you grow up!" Jin cried from the entrance to living room, with Kara looking concerned at his side. She'd obviously gone and told on them. "What's done is done, and fighting among ourselves will do nothing but make things worse, understand? Now get up, all of you, we've got things to talk about."

JJ sighed, upset at having his fun cancelled, and held out a gentlemanly hand to the dazed Kirah. She grumbled and grunted, but she took it and he hauled her to her feet. Zack and Zon weren't so amicable. They each picked themselves up, their eyes never leaving each other's faces, and walked to the sofas, making sure not to sit on the same one. JJ sat next to Zon while Kirah went and tended to her brother, and surprisingly, Kara walked over and sat next to the two hedgehogs. Kirah was surprised at this, having made friends with the lemur, but ignored it for the moment. Jin, meanwhile, had dragged the chair that Kara had been sitting in the other day so that it was now opposite the two sofas, and sat down.

"Alright, has everyone calmed down?" the wolf asked. When there was a unanimous nodding of heads, but no words, he decided he may need to clear the air a bit. He sighed to himself. His team were excellent at their jobs, but when it came to inter-office relations, they were terrible.

"Jin, that crazy bastard tried to kill Zack!" Kirah suddenly burst out, pointing at Zon. Jin glanced at the red hedgehog and could tell from the look in his golden eyes that Kirah was telling the truth. He shook his head and sighed again.

"Zon... what's been wrong with you recently?" he asked gently.

"Recently?" Zack spat, flecks of blood staining the white carpet, "He's had a screw loose for way longer than that, Jin."

"Hey!" JJ shouted, pointing at the porcupine, "You watch your mouth. And let's not forget it was you that started this fight, not Zon."

"He had it coming! I mean, what sort of screwed up nut job would kill one of Silvano's lieutenants after he's already told us he's after us?"

"One that wanted revenge, am I right Zon?" Jin said calmly, interrupting before JJ could retaliate.

"...Yes." Zon said quietly. "After Silvano nearly killed Tobias I couldn't help it. I felt like I had to get back at him, so I did."

Jin nodded in understanding; Tobias was like a father to Zon, so it made sense that he'd want retribution when he was threatened. Zack simply sat back, with a look of 'I still say he's mental' written across his face. JJ, meanwhile, was grinning at his friend.

"Nice one man." He said, patting his shoulder. "Wish I'd thought of that..."

"You shouldn't." Tobias said, walking into the room. Everyone turned to look at him and see if he was okay, which he seemed to be. He was wearing a clean suit, non-creased as usual, and the only sign that he had been hurt was the bandages swathing his spiked tail. "I understand what you did Vincent, and I'm touched, but it still wasn't the right thing to do."

Zon nodded slowly, not looking at anyone, which was the closest to an apology he was prepared to give. Jin nodded in return, and waited for Tobias to sit down next to Kirah before he got back to business.

"Right guys, now that that's sorted, here's the deal: I read those C.O.D documents last night, and you're not going to believe some of the stuff I found in there."

And just as he finished that sentence, as everyone in the room leaned ever-so-slightly closer, a small, black, ball-like object crashed through the small window on the front door of the apartment, flew through the short hall, and rolled to a halt directly in the middle of the group. They all sat and looked at it in disbelief for a few seconds, until its spherical form split slightly and greenish gas started pouring out of it.

"Gas!" Jin shouted, stating the obvious and rousing everyone into action. They all stood up and launched into a group sprint for the front door, which flew open just before they reached it. Everyone reacted differently; Jin and Tobias dove to the right into their bedroom, while JJ grabbed Kirah and dragged her into the other bedroom on the left. Zon, Kara and Zack all retreated back into the living room and slammed its door shut just as a team of black-clad commandos wearing gas masks swarmed into the apartment. Everyone knew they had to get out of the building, but there were only two exits; the front door and a fire exit outside Jin and Tobias' room.

In the living room, Zack scrambled behind the counter of the adjoined kitchen while Zon dragged Kara by her arm to the windows at the back of the building, also in the kitchen. He let go of her, leaving her rubbing her arm, and picked up a pot hanging on the wall before using it to smash the window in front of him. Zack, meanwhile, had been rummaging in the bottom cupboards of the counter and had retrieved a pistol and three clips of ammo. Just as he loaded the weapon, the commandos crashed through the door and began taking aim at everything in sight. Zack chanced a glance over at the window Zon had smashed, and saw that both he and Kara were gone. Realising that they must have climbed down a drainpipe, and that he'd have to do the same, he sneaked a glance around the counter at the carefully advancing commandos. They hadn't spotted him yet, but as soon as he went for the window, he'd be gunned down immediately. Luckily, the gas was flowing out of the window Zon had just smashed. Despite his personal feelings about Zon at the moment, Zack had to admit that he was good at what he did. But then, so was he.

In Kirah's room, JJ and the porcupine were opening their window as quickly as possible and as soon as it was open wide enough, they gingerly made their way out onto a narrow ledge surrounding the building, with Kirah going first and JJ following. Once outside, it was all they could do not to look down; only a few inches of cement stood between them and a 5 storey drop. They had to make it to the corner of the building, which was 10 metres away in one direction and at least 30 in the other, so that they could reach the drainpipe there and climb down. The only problem was the shorter path also took them past the large windows of the living room, which was currently swarming with commandos, forcing the pair to take the longer route. JJ inwardly cursed Jin for getting an apartment in such a huge, luxury building.

"You afraid of heights?" JJ asked loudly enough that Kirah could hear him in the biting wind.

"Yeah. Really, really afraid. You?" was her strained reply. She was desperately trying to move along the narrow ledge and not look down, which is of course the hardest thing to do when you're trying desperately to not look down.

"Nah, I'm more afraid of hitting the ground."

Jin and Tobias, meanwhile, knew that they had the easiest way out, and they were taking full advantage of it. Jin had spared a few seconds to grab the C.O.D's documents from his bed before fleeing straight out of the window onto the fire escape beyond. They were halfway down the fire escape when they saw Zon and Kara drop off a drainpipe to their right, and watched as the mismatched pair sprinted off around the side of the building. They soon reached the bottom themselves, and as they were preparing to run away, they heard a loud explosion from the apartment above them.

Back in the living room, Zack was making a desperate sprint for the smashed window. He had timed things carefully and had landed a perfect shot on one of the commandos' incendiary grenades, which hung exposed on their belts. The commandos had been spread out, so it didn't take all of them out, but it caused enough mayhem for the porcupine to make it to the window and escape down the same pipe Kara and Zon had used.

Outside on the ledge, the shock of the explosion startled Kirah and JJ, and one of Kirah's feet slipped off the edge and dangled out above the lethal drop. With nothing to grab to balance her, she found herself falling out into the air. Terror blinded her senses all at once, and she felt the overwhelming fear of her own mortality for the first time. Suddenly, JJ's hand latched onto hers, and when she looked back she saw that he had his foot jammed into a small crack in the wall to stabilise himself while he pulled her up.

"Th... thanks JJ," Kirah gasped, holding the hedgehog tight. She wanted to stay clinging there forever, but the JJ had other ideas.

"Hey, come on now." He said, dislodging himself from her desperate grip. "I'm all for hugs, but this really isn't the time. How about we finish doing that once we get out of this?"

"R... right." Kirah said, still shaken. She gradually started moving long the ledge again, while JJ continued to hold her hand, just in case. After what seemed like centuries, the pair reached the pipe at the corner of the building and began climbing down it. A crowd of people had gathered at the bottom, after hearing the grenade from the apartment and seeing the two mobians clambering along the tiny ledge. They tried to talk to the mercenaries when they got off the pipe, but they dispensed with manners and pushed through the well-meaning people and sprinted off into the city.

__________

Nevio Silvano was pacing his office stressfully. He found himself getting more and more stressed every day that the damned hedgehog that had killed Riley Thorpe eluded him. Thorpe had been one of his closest friends, and was the highest ranked member of the syndicate besides himself. Silvano had found someone to replace him business-wise, but there was no way to truly replace him, not in Silvano's mind. Midway through his pacing, his expensive phone rang, and the normally dignified man scooped it up as eagerly as a child scooping up an ice cream.

"Yes?" he said, bristling with anticipation.

"Sir... you know those mercenaries you asked us to keep an eye on?" the voice on the other end said.

"Yes, yes, what about them?"

"Well, we think they might've just been attacked, and they're running for it."

"Attacked? By who?" Silvano asked, thoroughly confused.

"We dunno sir, but we saw that hedgehog you were talking about with them when they ran away."

"I knew it!" Silvano hissed. Jin had been lying to him, the slimy toad! There was only one thing that could happen now. They all died. Starting with the red hedgehog. "Did you follow the hedgehog?"

"We tried to, sir, but there was a massive crowd and he just... disappeared. We can still see two of the other mercenaries though; should we follow them?"

Silvano seethed inwardly. The incompetent fools had lost his friend's murderer! But it was done now, and he had to make a decision.

"Very well, follow them. When you get the chance, snatch them and make them tell you where the others are. But your priority is the red hedgehog, understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Good." Silvano said, and hung up. Those idiotic mercenaries had no idea what they'd let themselves in for. He'd come down on them with the full force of his syndicate if necessary, and he'd tear that red hedgehog limb from limb. If they thought they had problems now, then they couldn't even imagine what they'd go through once he found them.

* * *

Right, now the story's getting properly underway.

I'm not sure what to think about the raid on Jin's apartment though, it's the first extended action scene I've written.

Anyways, thanks for reading.


End file.
